Adani & BHP in Talks for ₹30,000 Crore Copper Deal: Kutch Copper Set to Boost India’s Copper Sourcing Amid Global Demand Surge

New Delhi: Adani’s Kutch Copper, a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, is in discussions with Australia’s mining giant BHP for a major copper sourcing deal. The deal could involve up to 1.6 million tonnes of copper concentrate per year and is estimated to be worth around ₹30,000 crore annually, based on current copper prices, which can fluctuate.

The two companies are still working out the details of the agreement, according to sources familiar with the matter. Both BHP and Kutch Copper declined to comment when approached by The Economic Times.

As of now, the price of copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) is around $9,474 per tonne for November. The price is expected to rise to $9,715 per tonne in the next three months and might surpass $10,000 per tonne by December 2025.

In March this year, Kutch Copper launched the first unit of its greenfield copper refinery project in Mundra. Adani Enterprises is investing around $1.2 billion in setting up a copper smelter with a capacity of 0.5 million tonnes per year. Once the second phase is completed, this capacity will double, making Kutch Copper the largest single-location custom smelter in the world.

BHP, which sources copper from Chile, Australia, Argentina, and Arizona, is India’s biggest supplier of copper concentrates. Most Indian companies import copper concentrate containing about 25% copper for their smelting operations. The pricing of these deals is linked to the LME, and negotiations also involve factors like currency exchange rates, freight costs, and charges for treatment and refining of the copper concentrate.

In India, the only producer of copper ore is the public sector company Hindustan Copper Limited. However, the country’s total copper concentrate production is about 4 million tonnes per year, which meets just 4.5% of the country’s total copper needs.

India’s per capita copper consumption is expected to rise from 0.6 kg to 1 kg, according to estimates from the Union Ministry of Mines. Globally, per capita copper consumption stands at 3.2 kg.