Antofagasta
Chilean copper specialist with 52% margins bets $3.9B on 30% production growth, channeling all metabolic energy into single-commodity niche expansion.
The Luksic family's copper specialist operates four Chilean mines producing 664,000 tonnes annually—a pure-play metabolic strategy betting that electrification demand will outweigh portfolio diversification benefits. At $28.6 billion market cap with 8,095 employees, Antofagasta demonstrates niche specialization: 99% of revenue from copper and gold byproducts, zero hedging across other commodities.
This concentration creates both vulnerability and efficiency. The company's 52% EBITDA margin in 2024 ($3.4 billion on $6.6 billion revenue) reflects extraction excellence in a single metabolic pathway. Los Pelambres and Centinela mines function like specialized enzymes—optimized for copper processing but unable to switch substrates when copper prices crash.
Antofagasta's $3.9 billion 2025 capex—its largest ever—mirrors energy storage before reproduction. The company invests in Los Pelambres' concentrate pipeline and Centinela's second concentrator to achieve 30% production growth by 2030, timing expansion to the electric vehicle transition. This is temporal buffering: building capacity during high prices (copper averaged $4.09/lb in 2024) to have reserves when competitors retreat.
The 11% first-half 2025 production increase (314,900 tonnes) shows the payoff from counter-cyclical investment. While diversified miners allocate capital across multiple commodities, Antofagasta channels everything into copper infrastructure. In commodity ecology, specialists outcompete generalists when their niche expands—and copper demand from EVs, batteries, and grid infrastructure suggests niche expansion ahead.