Southern Copper Corp. sold $466.9 million of metal to customers in China in the third quarter, up 57% from a year earlier, its quarterly report filed with U.S. regulators on Oct. 30 shows. The increase came as the miner's Peruvian operations produced less copper and redirected much of their output to buyers in the Americas.

For Asian buyers, the filing offers an unusual company-level view of where Latin American copper is going at a time of record prices. Customers in China, Japan, Singapore and the rest of Asia bought $839.8 million of the company's metals in the quarter, against $586.2 million a year earlier, according to Capital Times calculations from the revenue note in the filing. That is a 43% rise, slightly faster than the 39% gain in total sales.

China accounts for well over half of the world's copper use. Chile's state copper commission recently put China's share at 57.3% when it raised its price forecast.

Mexico ships to China, Peru sells closer to home

The breakdown, which assigns sales to countries by the location of the customer, shows the China gain came from Mexico, where higher sales more than offset a drop from Peru. Southern Copper's Mexican open-pit unit, which runs the Buenavista and La Caridad mines in Sonora, sold $439.9 million to Chinese customers in the quarter, more than double the $209.6 million a year earlier. Its sales to U.S. customers fell to $214.9 million from $384 million.

The Peruvian unit moved in the opposite direction. Sales from Peru to customers in China dropped to $27 million from $87.5 million, and sales to Singapore fell to $38 million from $108.1 million. Japan was the exception in Asia: Peruvian sales to Japanese customers rose to $127.8 million from $84 million.

Instead, the Peruvian unit sold far more within the region and to the U.S. Its sales to customers in Peru nearly doubled to $396 million, sales to the U.S. rose to $316.3 million from $80.6 million, and sales to Chile and Brazil also climbed. In total, the Peru operations generated $1.72 billion of sales in the quarter, up from $1.30 billion.

The filing does not explain the shifts in destination. Over the first nine months of the year, sales to China rose 37% to $1.11 billion and sales to Japan rose 19% to $756.8 million.

Record profit despite lower output

The company reported its results on Oct. 20. Net sales rose 39.1% to $4.70 billion and net income climbed 62.7% to $1.80 billion, or $2.15 a share, both quarterly records, according to its earnings release. Adjusted Ebitda rose 53.9% to $3.04 billion, a margin of 64.7%.

Prices did the work. Copper on the London Metal Exchange averaged $6.41 a pound in the quarter, 44.4% more than a year earlier, while the Comex price averaged $6.48. Mined copper production slipped 1.1% to 232,396 metric tons, with Peruvian output down 6.1% because of lower ore grades and Mexican output up 2.5%, the company said. Shanghai Metals Market, the Chinese price reporting agency, noted that the earnings growth came mainly from higher metal prices despite the weaker mine output.

By-products cushioned costs. Operating cash cost net of by-product credits fell to 9 cents a pound from 42 cents, as revenue from molybdenum, silver and zinc rose. Before those credits, cash cost rose to $2.455 a pound from $2.227.

Chairman German Larrea said in the release that the company was “very pleased with our strong third-quarter performance.” The board declared a quarterly cash dividend of $1.30 a share plus a stock dividend of 0.0106 shares for each share held, payable Nov. 19 to holders of record on Nov. 3.

Peru projects set the pace of future supply

Peru holds most of Southern Copper's growth plans, with Peruvian project spending that could top $10.3 billion over the next decade, the company said, and the timing matters for Asian buyers that rely on long-term concentrate and cathode supply. The Tia Maria project in Arequipa was 49.6% complete at the end of September, with $884.3 million invested, according to the release. It is designed to produce 120,000 metric tons a year of copper cathodes in its early years, with operations expected to begin in the first half of 2028.

Further out, the Los Chancas mine in Apurimac would produce 130,000 tons of copper and 7,500 tons of molybdenum a year at an estimated cost of $2.6 billion, with operations expected in 2031. The company said it is working to regain control of the project area from illegal miners. Michiquillay in Cajamarca is planned to produce 225,000 tons of copper a year from about 2032, on an estimated investment of roughly $2.5 billion.

The company's own market outlook is more cautious than the price chart suggests. In its 10-Q, Southern Copper said it expects a slight copper market surplus in 2026, and estimated that global inventories of 1.105 million tons as of Oct. 9 covered about 14 days of world demand.