Australia is a very lucky country to have so many different commodities in abundance. That makes it easy for investors to get exposure to plenty of different resources on the ASX, such as copper. In this article, we're going to look at which ASX mining shares could be good investment candidates as copper miners.
Copper could be one of the most important resources when it comes to decarbonisation. It's important for the electricity grid, electric cars, renewable energy generation and so on.
ASX mining share giant Rio Tinto Ltd (ASX: RIO) believes that "global demand for copper is set to grow by 1.5% to 2.5% per year, driven by electrification and increasing requirements for renewable energy."
S&P Global recently said that it's expecting that the green energy transition "will continue to boost copper consumption in the September quarter". It has upgraded its forecast for the three months to September to $8,743 per tonne.
Rio Tinto has an impressive, and growing, copper project portfolio, but it's also involved with a number of other commodities, so I don't think it's the best way to get that exposure. For me, there are (at least) two other ASX shares that could be more effective.
Sandfire Resources Ltd (ASX: SFR)
Sandfire is a relatively large miner, in ASX terms, with a market capitalisation of close to $3 billion, according to the ASX.
The business has a number of copper projects, including the DeGrussa copper-gold project in Western Australia. Other projects include MATSA Mining in Spain.
Another of the main focuses for Sandfire is a copper project in the African country of Botswana called Motheo. This copper mine has started producing its first copper concentrate.
Sandfire could grow its future copper project list as it explores around the world for more opportunities. The ASX mining share says it has a vast, high-quality exploration portfolio in Australia, the Kalahari 'copper belt' in Botswana and Namibia, Montana in the USA, and across the Iberian Pyrite belt in Spain and Portugal.
According to Commsec, it's valued at 13 times FY25's estimated earnings.
Aeris Resources Ltd (ASX: AIS)
This is my favourite ASX mining share right now because of its exposure to copper and how cheap it seems to be. According to Commsec, the ASX copper share is priced at 5 times FY24's estimated earnings.
It's largely a copper miner with a few different operations including the Tritton underground copper operations in the Cobar region of central New South Wales. There are also the Jaguar operations in the Eastern Goldfields region of Western Australia, which produce zinc, copper and silver.
The company's North Queensland operations comprise "the underground Mt Colin copper mine, the Barbara development project and a prospective, 1,102km2 tenement package in the Mt Isa/Cloncurry region."
The ASX mining share is also working on the Stockman project, which is a copper and zinc development in the East Gippsland region of Victoria.
