Top 5 ASX Copper Stocks of 2024

Year-to-date gain: 93.1 percent; market cap: AU$252.01 million; share price: AU$0.56

Exploration-stage Encounter Resources controls a portfolio of wholly owned copper and niobium/rare earth projects in Australia’s Northern Territory and Western Australia. The company is also advancing large-scale copper projects via partnership and farm-in agreements with South32 (ASX:S32,OTC Pink:SHTLF) and IGO (ASX:IGO).

The company’s partners have released multiple news items this year. In March, IGO announced a significant copper anomaly discovery at the Yeneena project in Western Australia, for which IGO has a farm-in agreement.

The following month brought news out of the Jessica copper project in the Northern Territory, where a South32 subsidiary completed assays on drill core confirming “the presence of copper sulphide bearing veins and alteration signatures associated with iron oxide copper gold (IOCG) style mineralisation.”

As for Encounter’s wholly owned projects, the company reported significant copper mineralisation discovered during drilling at its Sandover copper project in the Northern Territory in mid-May.

Encounter’s share price climbed to a year-to-date high of AU$0.62 on June 24.

Year-to-date gain: 62.07 percent; market cap: AU$237.04 million; share price: AU$0.235

Aeris Resources has three primary copper assets in Australia, with two currently in production: the Tritton operations, and the North Queensland operations. The company recently placed its Jaguar zinc-copper operation on care and maintenance. Its portfolio also contains the producing Cracow gold mine in Queensland.

In its first quarter 2024 activities report, Aeris reported copper production of 5,900 tonnes. The company’s 2024 copper production guidance stands at 28,000 to 35,000 tonnes.

Aeris’ pipeline includes the Stockman copper-zinc-gold-silver project in Victoria, and its Canbelego copper joint venture project in New South Wales. The company expects to complete a feasibility study at Stockman in the second half of 2024.

At Canbelego, Aeris’ JV partner Helix Resources’ (ASX:HLX) drill program testing an induced polarisation geophysics anomaly recently intersected a large new structural zone with associated copper mineralisation.

Aeris’ share price traded with the rising copper price to hit a year-to-date high of AU$0.34 on May 20.

Year-to-date gain: 43.33 percent; market cap: AU$64.04 million; share price: AU$0.043

Near-term copper producer Cyprium Metals is focused on developing multiple copper projects throughout Western Australia. Its most advanced is the Nifty copper mine project located in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, which operated until 2019, when it was put on care and maintenance because of low copper prices.

In late May, Cyprium announced the completion of a positive scoping study on the restart of the Nifty copper mine, the results of which prompted a board decision to move the project to the pre-feasibility stage.

“A moderate investment in the brownfield processing plant capacity can nearly double the potential throughput of the plant, enabling the surface mine to produce around 36,000 tonnes of copper metal per year by matching strong mine design, right equipment selection and expanded processing capacity,” Cyprium Executive Chair Matt Fifield commented.

Shares in Cyprium reach a year-to-date of high of AU$0.05 on June 7.

Year-to-date gain: 40 percent; market cap: AU$198.53 million; share price: AU$0.49

Bougainville Copper is working to reopen the past-producing Panguna copper complex, which ceased operations in 1989.

Panguna is considered one of the largest copper deposits in the world, and according to the company, its successful restart is viewed as a critical component of future economic independence for Bougainville, which is an autonomous region in Papua New Guinea. The country’s government holds a 36.5 percent share in the company.

In early February, after much deliberation, Bougainville Copper was granted a five year extension to its Panguna mining licence, which the company hoped would open the door for advanced-stage prefeasibility and feasibility exploration activities.

The news sent shares of the company spiking to their best year-to-date close of 2024 — AU$0.80 on February 2 — more than double Bougainville Copper’s close of AU$0.35 the previous day.

However, the company announced in late May it was served with notice of a class action lawsuit on behalf of Bougainville residents seeking compensation for claimed environmental and social harm due to the Panguna mine’s previous operations.

“The company will fully consider the matters raised in the claim and intends to vigorously defend its position,” Bougainville Copper stated in the press release.

Year-to-date gain: 21.74 percent; market cap: AU$239.77 million; share price: AU$0.42

AIC Mines owns the high-grade Eloise copper mine in North Queensland, as well as a portfolio of exploration-stage copper-gold projects in Australia. Eloise started production in 1996, and the company is looking to expand the life of the operation by the nearby Jericho deposit.

In late March, the company posted a new ore reserve estimate for Jericho, followed shortly by an announcement that drilling has begun at the recently discovered Swagman prospect, located between Eloise and Jericho. Later in May, AIC announced it will start development work at Jericho via an underground link drive directly from the Eloise decline following mining studies that compared the method with another option.

In its report for the quarter ended March 31, 2024, AIC Mines reported production of 3,066 tonnes of copper and 1,532 ounces of gold in concentrate. The company said it’s on track to meet its 2024 production guidance of 12,000 tonnes of copper and 5,000 ounces of gold.

Record copper prices lifted AIC Mines’ share price to a year-to-date high of AU$0.60 on May 20.