BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining company, said that copper is the biggest beneficiary of the popularity of electric vehicles and new energy sources.
Australian chief executive MacKenzie said Angloan miner will concentrate on boosting its copper output rather than investing in smaller markets such as lithium or cobalt.
Mr MacKenzie said: 'We are going to expand the copper market to a large extent. The copper market will still be substantially larger than our estimate for the cobalt-cobalt market, even taking into account the demand for the cobalt-cobalt market for electric vehicles.'
BHP Billiton plans to spend 2.5 billion U.S. dollars to extend the life cycle of the Spence copper mine in Chile and is exploring new copper mines in Chile, Peru and Ecuador.