London, April 30, 2026, 19:07 (BST)
Antofagasta plc shares rose 3.24% on Thursday to 3,549.5 pence, outpacing a 1.62% gain in the FTSE 100 as copper-linked stocks found buyers again after a choppy week. The Chile-focused miner’s stock still sits well below its February high, but the move put it among the stronger London blue-chip performers of the day.
The timing matters. Copper, used in power grids, construction and manufacturing, rose in London trading after stronger factory data from China, the world’s biggest consumer of the metal. The London Metal Exchange three-month copper price, a common benchmark for metal delivered in three months, was up 0.9% at $13,119.50 a metric ton by 0935 GMT and was heading for its best month of 2026 so far.
Antofagasta is a cleaner copper trade than many larger diversified miners. The company describes itself as a Chilean-based copper mining group with interests in transport, and its shares often move with expectations for copper prices, project delivery and Chilean mine output.
The broader money flow has also turned more favourable. Reuters reported on Thursday that assets in mining exchange-traded funds more than doubled to $87.4 billion by March 31 from $37 billion a year earlier, as investors rotated into metals and other hard assets. BlackRock portfolio manager Evy Hambro called it “the early stages of a commodity supercycle,” while Regal Partners’ Charlie Aitken said copper was “at the intersection of everything.” Reuters
The rally gives Antofagasta some breathing room, but not a clean reset. MarketWatch data showed the stock remained 20.68% below its 52-week high of £44.75, reached on Feb. 25, and Thursday’s trading volume was slightly below its 50-day average.
Operationally, the latest hard numbers were mixed. Antofagasta said on April 15 that first-quarter copper production fell 8% from a year earlier to 143,000 tonnes, reflecting lower processing rates and lower grades at Los Pelambres and Centinela Concentrates. Net cash costs — an industry measure of production cost after credits for by-products such as gold and molybdenum — fell 30% to $1.08 per pound, and the company kept full-year copper output guidance at 650,000 to 700,000 tonnes.
Chief Executive Iván Arriagada said production should rise quarter-on-quarter as processing rates and grades improve at Los Pelambres. He also said “the copper price remains constructive in 2026,” but pointed to higher energy prices and the need for tight cost control. Antofagasta
Project delivery remains the next test. Antofagasta said pre-commissioning work had started at the Centinela Second Concentrator Project, while work continued on Los Pelambres growth projects including a concentrate pipeline and desalination plant expansion. Those projects matter because the company has said it wants to lift copper production by 30%.
Peer news helped frame the day. Glencore, another major London-listed miner, said Thursday that first-quarter copper output rose 19% to 199,600 tonnes on better grades in Africa and higher output at Antamina in Peru. It also said stronger commodity prices should more than offset emerging cost pressures from diesel and sulphuric acid, a signal investors may also apply to copper-heavy names such as Antofagasta.
But the risk is that copper’s latest lift proves fragile. CRU analyst Craig Lang said Chinese refined copper demand was forecast to grow 2.8% this year, but also said high prices had been driven partly by fund buying and that prices could move “towards $11,000 by year-end” before recovering over the medium term. For Antofagasta, that would test whether lower costs and higher second-half output can offset any cooling in the metal price. Business Recorder
