Copper was supposed to be boring, cyclical, and dependable. Companies would dig more when prices rise, pull back when they fall. But that playbook is breaking down, and that shift has been decades in the making.
Between 2015 and 2025, major copper discoveries were not just fewer, they were smaller. The industry couldn’t find deposits that moved the needle. Exploration budgets recovered after 2020, but the results didn’t. The world is no longer stumbling across Escondidas or Grasbergs. Most “new” copper today comes from drilling deeper, wider, or longer around deposits that were already known decades ago.
Expansion Over Exploration
That shift isn’t accidental. S&P Global’s research has shown that over the past years, miners have increasingly favored expanding existing operations rather than pursuing greenfield discoveries. It’s safer, easier to finance, and usually faster — at least on paper. Brownfield expansions don’t require building roads, ports, or social licenses from scratch.
The downside is obvious. Squeezing more out of aging systems, often at rising cost and falling grade.
Codelco is the poster child of this trend. As the world’s largest copper producer, it now needs roughly $5 billion a year in capex just to keep production flat. Not grow, just maintain. Ore grades are declining, mines are deeper, energy and water costs are higher, and complexity is rising. This isn’t a Codelco-specific problem. It’s what happens when an industry leans too long on legacy assets.
Disruptions Take Toll
At the same time, the supply side is getting hit from all angles. InvAsset data shows that in 2025 alone, roughly 550,000 tons of copper production were lost or disrupted across Chile, Indonesia, Africa, and North America.
These weren’t demand-driven cuts. They came from labor disputes, geotechnical issues, lower grades, permitting delays, maintenance overruns, and weather-related incidents. Fragile supply is now meeting little margin for error.
Of roughly 258 major copper discoveries identified over the past 35 years, only a handful appear capable of rivaling the historic greats. Projects like Barrick’s (NYSE:B) Reko Diq, McEwen’s (NYSE:MUX) Los Azules, and Lundin’s (OTCPK: LUNMF) Filo del Sol stand out because they combine size, grade, and mine life in a way that could support world-class production.
But even these are rare exceptions, not the rule, and all come with long timelines and heavy capital requirements.
No Quick Solutions
Worse, some of the best deposits ever found still aren’t mines.
The Resolution project in Arizona is one of the largest copper discoveries in U.S. history. Yet, this high-grade project remains undeveloped, due to legal challenges and cultural and environmental concerns. Pebble in Alaska may be even better, but its location near salmon fisheries stalled its advancement.
The ultimate hurdle might not be finding the ore, but achieving regulatory approvals.
The copper problem is structural to the point of contagion. Roughly one quarter of global silver production comes as a byproduct of copper mining. When copper projects are delayed, downsized, or canceled, silver supply quietly takes a hit too.
That’s why silver shortages closely relate to copper constraints, not silver geology, which is seldom standalone. Over the last 12 months, spot silver price rose by more than 270%.
With fewer big discoveries, expensive and aging mines, fragile supply, and long development timelines, the list of problems to solve is long, and it collides with the electrification and AI timeline.
This isn’t a problem that higher prices can fix quickly. And that’s what makes it different this time.
Price Watch: Global X Copper Miners ETF (NYSE:COPX) is up 24.75% year-to-date.
Image: Shutterstock
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