The Copper Supply Gap Has a Schedule Now

Freeport-McMoRan Indonesia just confirmed what the Q1 earnings hinted at: Grasberg's full restart has slipped again, to early 2028.

This is a cohort question across the major copper producers.

Take the senior copper producers: Freeport-McMoRan, Grupo Antofagasta Minerals, Anglo American's copper portfolio, Southern Copper Corp, First Quantum Minerals and Hudbay Minerals. Now re-mark FCX's attributable copper for 2026–27 against the revised Grasberg schedule. Production down to 700 million pounds this year from the original one-billion-pound target. Ramp to 65% capacity in H2 2026, 80% by mid-2027, full output only by early 2028.

The analytical question that matters: does the rest of the cohort's relative valuation shift to absorb the tighter supply, or does FCX take the entire repricing hit alone?

Early signals suggest it is not clean. On a trailing EV/EBITDA basis, FCX sits near 12x. Southern Copper trades above 17x. The spread between them has been widening since April's guidance cut, but the broader peer group has barely moved. That asymmetry is worth investigating.

Layer in the context: Barrick has paused Reko Diq development until mid-2027, citing security escalation in Balochistan and the broader Middle East. Phase 1 capex was already tracking between $5.6 and $6.0 billion before the pause. That is 15 million tonnes of copper reserves sitting idle.

Sprott's latest report argues the copper supply deficit is deepening, not stabilising, with Grasberg alone removing an estimated 591,000 metric tonnes from the market through December 2026.

The macro copper thesis has been circulating for two years. What is different now is that the supply-gap story has named assets, named schedules, and named numbers.

For anyone running a copper-weighted portfolio, fund, or streaming book: how quickly can you re-run the comp screen when the schedule shifts? Less searching. More strategising.™