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Rebuilding resilience
Hudbay Minerals is a Canadian mining company focused on copper, gold, and critical minerals. Known for identifying high-potential brownfield and greenfield projects, the company targets scalable, long-life assets across the Americas.
That strategic focus took shape through a series of key turning points. When Peter Kukielski became President and CEO in 2019, Hudbay was navigating a setback: a court judgment had halted progress on its Rosemont open-pit copper project in Arizona.
With depleting assets at its Manitoba base, Hudbay had been banking on Rosemont, Kukielski says: “The company had effectively anchored itself to a single plan.” Excessive debt, an unbalanced investor base and limited liquidity added to the pressure.
Kukielski’s response was to reinvest in high-return brownfield projects. “We pivoted to low-risk, low-capital intensity growth in Peru and in Manitoba, while addressing the underlying issues with our permits and our balance sheet,” he says.
With its Peruvian copper and gold pit in operation and its mill in Manitoba’s Snow Lake region refurbished, Hudbay took the bold step of acquiring the Copper Mountain mine in British Columbia. Its addition lifted the company to become the third-largest copper producer in Canada.
With permitting now complete at its latest Arizona site, Copper World, Hudbay is also poised to become one of the biggest players in the U.S. sector, where Kukielski sees the bulk of its future copper growth.
Meanwhile, a focus on reducing spending, debt and financial leverage, plus a funding plan to unlock Hudbay’s growth pipeline, secured its financial future.
“The larger operating base drives higher valuations. It attracts people, and we empower them,” Kukielski says. “As a result, we have what I believe is one of the best-positioned copper companies in the sector.”
“The larger operating base drives higher valuations. It attracts people, and we empower them.”
Peter Kukielski, President and CEO, Hudbay
Concentrating on copper, going for gold
Despite a period of volatility for copper, and the recent impact of U.S. trade tariffs, Hudbay continues to believe in the mineral’s fundamentals. Kukielski points to rising demand and the 15-year gestation period for new mines.
“Long term, with the lack of new copper supply and chronic underinvestment in the space, we believe that supply will be unable to meet demand – especially with the growing demand from electrification initiatives and powering data centers,” he says.
That said, gold provides a useful hedge for Hudbay. Gold prices are robust and the company has controlled production costs. Gold now makes up 38% of Hudbay’s revenue, and it is exploring new sites in Snow Lake and Peru.
“While not losing sight of the fact that we are a copper company, at the same time we are throwing all of the capability that our teams are able to muster to maximize gold production,” Kukielski adds.
“While not losing sight of the fact that we are a copper company, we are throwing all of the capability that our teams are able to muster to maximize gold production.”
Peter Kukielski, President and CEO, Hudbay
Tech yields opportunity and productivity
Hudbay has a 100-year history built on operating with strong social license and delivering benefit to local communities. But it continues to embrace new advances, which mitigate the higher costs of deeper mining.
In Peru, for example, “Visitors to our Constancia mill are always puzzled by the absence of people on the floor, and the reason for that is because the teams there work smart, and they deploy automated systems,” says Kukielski.
“In Manitoba, reprocessing of gold tailings and extraction of acid-generating materials while producing saleable gold is a huge opportunity for us,” he adds, “and we think it has the potential to move towards a more circular approach in mining.”
Looking ahead, Hudbay is exploring how AI and digital tools can drive the next wave of operational efficiency and sustainable growth.
