MELBOURNE, June 27, 2026, 02:03 (AEST)
- BHP closed Friday at A$58.99, gaining 0.8%. The S&P/ASX 200 finished up 0.18%.
- Shares are trading 10.6% under their A$65.98 52-week high, down about A$35.5 billion in equity value.
- BHP’s CEO-elect Brandon Craig has divided the Americas position, moving to reassert capital control after the Jansen potash reset.
- Copper now drives BHP’s earnings, making up 51% of group underlying EBITDA for the first half.
BHP Group Ltd (ASX:BHP) finished the week in positive territory but the gain wasn’t enough to reverse losses from its potash cost reset. Shares moved up 0.8% to end at A$58.99 on Friday. The S&P/ASX 200 added 0.18% to finish at 8,764.20. BHP is down 10.6% from its 52-week high of A$65.98.
The dollar numbers are clearer. Shares were up A$0.47 on Friday, tacking on roughly A$2.4 billion to the market cap, with 5.08 billion shares out, according to Google Finance. Still, there’s a gap of about A$35.5 billion between the 52-week high and where the stock ended Friday.
Craig is set to take over as chief executive on July 1. On Friday he split his old role, President Americas, into President North America and President South America. Jessica Farrell will be President North America from July 1 and is also covering President South America while BHP hires someone for that job. Edgar Basto leaves his chief operating officer post to become chief enterprise performance officer starting Sept. 1. Geraldine Slattery keeps Australia and now also handles Copper South Australia.
Craig said the split will allow “greater focus on each of these regions” and help BHP “deploy capital to the right opportunities in a disciplined way.” BHP
The Americas portfolio is in focus after BHP last week upped the cost estimate for Jansen Stage 2 in Canada to US$6.9 billion from US$4.9 billion. The company kept its first production target for late FY2031 and flagged a US$2.3 billion impairment on the project. Jansen Stage 2 was 16% finished at the end of May.
BHP shares dropped 5.6% to A$61.40 on June 19, marking their sharpest fall since April 7, 2025, after its Jansen project update. The market sold hard, reacting to the higher Jansen costs. William Taylor, COO and portfolio manager at ETF Shares, told Reuters the decline was a “direct reaction” to Jansen costs and investor fears over “immediate capital intensity.” Reuters
Cost worries aren’t going away for Craig next week. “Cost control is definitely a priority,” said Elan Miller, deputy portfolio manager at Blackwattle Investment Partners, a BHP shareholder. Glyn Lawcock, head of resources research at Barrenjoey, said, “Capex increases are on everyone’s mind.” Reuters
BHP faced a mixed setup in commodities heading into the weekend. Copper climbed 0.81% to around US$6.12 per lb on June 26, putting it up 20.82% this year. Iron ore, meanwhile, sat at US$100.37 a tonne on June 25, having dropped 8.14% for the month.
Copper took a bigger share of BHP’s earnings this time. The company’s half-year result showed copper delivered a record US$8.0 billion in underlying EBITDA, now making up 51% of group underlying EBITDA—more than half for the first time. Group underlying attributable profit was up 22% at US$6.2 billion.
CEO changes hands Wednesday to kick off the week. Port Hedland unions have labour talks set for July 7 at BHP’s iron ore export terminal, and they’re threatening to strike together if the talks go nowhere.
