Freeport-McMoRan profits surge 28% as copper demand fuels earnings beat
Shares in the US-based miner fell 2.6% to $63.60, even as the company trimmed its year-end cash flow projection and lowered gold price expectations.
Freeport-McMoRan reported a 28 per cent increase in second-quarter profits on July 23, 2026, a result that exceeded Wall Street consensus estimates of 62 cents per share compared with 54 cents a year ago. The Phoenix-based miner delivered the earnings beat despite a 7.3 per cent decline in revenue to US$7.03 billion, a drop that was smaller than expected. The company attributed the profit growth to robust demand for copper, driven by data centre expansion and electrification projects.
Copper prices are currently trading near all-time highs, with the metal at US$6.32 per pound in New York and £13,895 per ton in London. This marks a rise of more than 700 per cent since the end of 1999. The commodity is increasingly critical for high-speed computer chips and the wiring infrastructure required for global data centres, which consume approximately 25 to 47 metric tons of copper per megawatt of power.
The surge in demand is underpinned by massive capital expenditure from technology firms. Alphabet spent US$44.9 billion in the second quarter and raised its full-year capital spending estimate to between US$195 billion and US$205 billion, more than double its 2025 spending. Despite this, Alphabet shares fell more than 7 per cent to $318 on July 23 due to investor unhappiness with the projected increase in capital spending.
Freeport-McMoRan operates the giant Grasberg mine in Indonesia, one of the world’s largest single gold deposits, alongside sites in Arizona, New Mexico, Peru, and Chile. The company also noted that Grasberg production will be lower than originally expected. Consequently, the miner trimmed its year-end cash flow projection to US$8.3 billion from the US$8.7 billion estimated in March. The decline was largely due to a lower expected gold price of $4,000 an ounce, down from the $4,500 projected earlier in the year.
Despite the mixed operational guidance, Freeport’s shares are up 24 per cent so far in 2026, though they were down 2.6% to $63.60 at the time of writing on July 23. S&P Global estimates that global copper demand will jump from 28 million metric tons to 42 million tons by 2040, representing a 50 per cent gain. This long-term outlook supports competitors such as Australia’s BHP and Chile’s state-owned Codelco, as well as top producing nations including Chile, Australia, Peru, Russia, and the United States.
