Mining profits set to drop amid cost, price pressures

Vale fell seven spots this year, ranking 12th, while CSN Mineração, which placed 34th in 2024, dropped out of the list altogether.

The study shows that earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), the key measure of operating performance, slipped 5% in 2024 to $193 billion, marking the second straight year of decline. PwC forecasts another dip in 2025, with EBITDA edging down 1% to $190 billion.

Net income is expected to fall 4% to $88 billion, following a modest 1% gain in 2024 to $92 billion. Consolidated revenue should hold steady at about $863 billion, little changed from 2024’s $867 billion.

The sector has yet to recover from the broad downturn of 2023, when revenues dropped 7%, EBITDA plunged 26%, and profits fell 22%. In 2024, excluding gold, consolidated revenue slipped 3% and Ebitda fell 10%.

“Gold’s strong growth was so significant that we had to trace back its share of revenues to 2022 to show its impact,” said Patrícia Seoane, partner at PwC Brazil.

For 2025, the industry’s top four players will be BHP (Australia), China Shenhua Energy (up one spot), Rio Tinto (down one), and Freeport-McMoRan (up two).

According to Ms. Seoane, profit margins are being squeezed by both rising costs and falling commodity prices. Coal, for example, is under pressure from ESG-driven substitution, while iron ore prices are closely tied to China’s infrastructure cycle.

“China has been the main driver of demand. If it decides to invest heavily in infrastructure, iron ore demand and prices rise. If not, prices fall. We’re seeing iron ore prices decline because those major investments aren’t happening,” she said.

To manage costs, miners are turning to automation, robotics, and higher ore concentration technologies. Preventive maintenance is also key to extending equipment life, Ms. Seoane added. “Companies are laser-focused on cost control—because that’s what they can manage. And today, cost reduction comes through technology.”

PwC also flagged concentration risks, particularly for energy-transition minerals. China accounts for over 50% of production of about 18 minerals and holds over 10% of reserves of more than 35. Diversification of both production and processing locations is seen as crucial to reducing supply chain vulnerability.

Brazil could benefit from this shift as company seek strategic locations to mitigate supply-chain vulnerabilities and price volatility, PwC Brasil said. “We still have many undeveloped reserves of minerals beyond iron or copper,” said Ms. Seoane, citing rare-earths, the second-largest reserves after China, but accounts for less than 1% of global output, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

However, Brazil’s weak mineral processing capacity remains a bottleneck, she warned. Brazil usually exports raw commodities without value-added processing. “The country loses out on a huge value gap that other economies capture,” Ms. Seoane said. Developing domestic processing also faces hurdles including high costs, political instability, and regulatory uncertainty.

Brazil still has a politically unstable environment, which can affect investment security. That directly impacts why the country has so little mineral processing capacity to keep the value chain here. Yet this is a crucial avenue that could generate significant value for Brazil,” said Ms. Seoane.

While the study does not go into detail on the domestic mining industry, an analysis by PwC Brazil shared with Valor shows that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have been rising moderately since 2022, reaching 16 deals in 2024 compared with 12 in 2023. So far this year, five transactions have already been completed.