BHP has set its eyes on becoming a major global producer of potash, banking on the nearing completion of its asset that mines for the potassium-based mineral in Canada as it also pushes for a bigger play in the global energy transition market.

Barely two months after abandoning its bid for rival Anglo American in which it was mainly interested in its copper assets, BHP is continuing to grow its options away from minerals that drive emissions.

“We continued to execute against our strategy, progressing growth options in the commodities the world needs to meet the demands of the energy transition and population growth,” BHP CEO Mike Henry said yesterday.

“This includes our Jansen potash mine in Canada, where construction of Stage 1 is now more than 50% complete and Stage 2 is under way.”

BHP is set to deliver its first potash production in 2026.

Potash, specifically Muriate of Potash (MOP) is a potassium-rich salt used to improve agricultural production. Potassium is essential for plant health as it increases yields, improves water efficiency and improves pest and disease resistance.

Henry said BHP will become “a major global producer of potash by the end” of the current decade. Stocks in the company inched up by 1.21% in afternoon trade on the JSE yesterday to R519.26 per share.

Although it announced that it was suspending its nickel production in Australia, Henry said BHP finished the year to June, 2024 with a strong fourth quarter.

Its West Australia iron ore unit delivered “strong performance” after it raised production to 260 million tons. This was on the back of ongoing incremental improvements along its supply chain as the company progresses towards its medium-term goal of increasing iron ore production to more than 305m tons per year.

BHP’s total copper production surged by 9% to 1.8 million tons as it expects output of the commodity for the 2025 full year to be between 1.8 million tons and 2 million tons.

“We achieved a strong performance across our copper business globally, underpinned by the highest production in four years at Escondida and another year of record production from Spence in Chile,” explained Henry.

The Escondida mine uplifted production due to a higher concentrator feed grade of 0.88% as mining progressed into areas of higher-grade ore as planned, following the implementation of measures to manage geotechnical events in the prior year.

However, this had been partially offset by planned lower cathode production, as a result of prioritising concentrator throughput in previous years.

Nonetheless, the successful integration at Copper South Australia delivered additional production tons, and exceeded the annualised synergies planned at the time of the OZL acquisition.

During the year to June, 2024 BHP’s capital and exploration spend is likely to amount to $9.3 billion (R169bn) below the $10bn guidance for the period.

This has been attributed to favourable foreign exchange and cash preservation decisions at Western Australia Nickel, where production is being suspended.

Of this total, minerals exploration and evaluation expenditure was $457m compared to $350m a year earlier. About $399m had been expensed.

BHP’s metallurgical coal production however dipped during the period under review by as much as 23% to 22.3 million tons as a result of “increased stripping to improve supply chain stability and restore depleted inventory” positions. This had arisen out of extended weather impacts and labour constraints over the past few years, as well as from the divestment from Blackwater and Daunia projects in April this year.

“Production was also impacted by an extended long-wall move and geotechnical faulting at Broadmeadow during H1 FY24, and the temporary suspension of operations following the fatality of a team member at Saraji,” the company said.