BHP Group (NYSE: BHP) recently announced that the South Australian government initiated an assessment of its planned Smelter and Refinery expansion at Olympic Dam.
The SRE plan will be carried out in two phases and is expected to take BHP's copper production in South Australia from 322,000 tons in fiscal 2024 to more than 500,000 tons by early 2030's. The figure is expected to reach 650,000 tons in the mid-2030's.
BHP's Efforts to Grow Copper South Australia
Following the acquisition of OZL in May 2023, BHP established the Copper South Australia province. The deal added Prominent Hill (a high-quality copper-gold mine) and Carrapateena (an iron-oxide-copper–gold underground mine) to its portfolio. Both mines are located in the highly lucrative Gawler Craton in South Australia and are close to BHP's Olympic Dam and Oak Dam development project.
The recent development marks an important step for BHP and the South Australian government as they work together to significantly increase copper production in the state. A final investment decision on phase one of the SRE plan is currently scheduled for the first half of fiscal 2027. The SRE plan is expected to unlock around $1.5 billion of synergies, including $0.6 billion already captured via integration
The SRE plan is supported by the recent exploration success at OD Deeps where the company has identified intercepts indicating grades greater than 1% copper as well as solid prospects at Oak Dam.
BHP, in its fiscal 2024 results, declared that Oak ...
