BHP Results Presentation20 Feb 2024 08:03
From today’s BHP RNS.....
A primary focus on financing presumes that the projects are ready and waiting. The reality is that the industry’s collective set of development options is modest by comparison with prior decades, with the well–known lack of discoveries, the depth and complexity of what has been found, and the lengthening catalogue of above ground risks and regulatory hurdles that confront project developers all add to the challenges of bringing additional copper to end–users in a timely fashion. Technological progress can help at the margin to improve the productivity of existing operations, but the binding geological realities feel like the stronger force for this decade at least.
In closing for this chapter, we reiterate our view that the price setting marginal tonne a decade hence will come from either a lower grade brownfield expansion in a mature jurisdiction, or a higher grade greenfield in a higher risk and/or emerging jurisdiction. None of these sources of metal are likely to come cheaply, easily – or, unfortunately, promptly.