LONDON – Chilean copper miner Antofagasta posted an 11% jump in annual core profit on Tuesday, helped by higher prices for the metal.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for the full year rose to $3.43 billion from $3.09 billion a year earlier.
The copper miner’s proposed final dividend of 23.5 cents a share is a 50% payout of underlying earnings per share.
Antofagasta made a record shareholder payout of 142.5 cents a share in 2021, amounting to $1.4 billion. Its policy is to return at least 35% of net earnings to shareholders.
It reported capital expenditure of $2.4 billion last year, and expects that to soar to $3.9 billion in 2025, as works on its Centinela concentrator peak, while its net debt rose to $1.63 billion at the end of 2024, from $1.16 billion a year earlier. Analysts had forecast net debt to be around $2 billion.
“The stronger than expected net debt is useful as Antofagasta moves into the year of its highest ever capex budget,” Peel Hunt analysts said in a note.
The London-listed group’s shares rose 2.3% at 0940 GMT, outperforming other miners.
The company, majority owned by Chile’s Luksic family, operates four copper mines in the South American country.
Booming demand prospects for copper, used in energy transition applications, including solar panels and electric vehicles, sent the share price of pure play miners higher in 2024. Antofagasta’s shares gained 15% for the year.
“We are encouraged by the outlook for copper as demand remains strong and global constraints, such as grade decline, ore hardness and capex inflation, are steadily limiting existing supply expansions,” CEO Iván Arriagada said in a statement.
(Reporting by Clara Denina, Shashwat Awasthi; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Susan Fenton)
