BHP Shares Upgraded to Buy, As Site Visit Boosts Copper Conviction

BHP shares (ASX:BHP) closed the first session of the month at A$60.26, falling back 0.92% to close at the session low, as broader headwinds weighed on Aussie markets at the start of the final quarter of the year. Despite a 31.69% gain YTD, the BHP share price only managed a 2.39% gain through Q3, with the bulk of gains front-loaded into the first half.

The A$60 level has continually acted as a something of a technical magnet for BHP, a level that price shifts to during periods of weakness but with buyers stepping in to prevent a meaningful breakdown. There could be further buying support on the horizon, as Bank of America has lifted its rating on BHP Group to Buy following a site visit to the miner’s Olympic Dam copper facility, raising its price target to A$68 and reinforcing a bullish view on the world’s largest copper producer.

Confidence In Copper Expansion Drives Upgrade

The Bank of America upgrade, issued by analyst Jason Fairclough, shifts BHP’s rating from Neutral to Buy and lifts the 12-month price target from A$65 to A$68. The revision is anchored in BofA’s constructive view on global copper fundamentals and BHP’s unique positioning as the world’s largest copper producer with what the firm describes as meaningful upside to consensus production estimates.

The upgrade followed an institutional site visit to Olympic Dam, BHP’s flagship copper, uranium, gold, and silver operation located in South Australia. The visit is reported to have increased BofA’s conviction in the Phase 1 expansion results at the site, where BHP has committed substantial capital to infrastructure improvements including underground access tunnels, upgrades to the oxygen plant, and an electric rail expansion, with investments understood to exceed A$840 million in aggregate across the South Australian copper province.

Olympic Dam sits at the heart of BHP’s longer-term copper growth ambitions. The company is targeting an expansion of its copper output from approximately 1.7 million tonnes per annum toward roughly 2.5 million tonnes per annum by FY2035; a trajectory that, if executed on schedule, would significantly deepen its leverage to what many analysts regard as one of the most structurally sound commodity demand stories of the decade.

Copper’s long-term demand profile is underpinned by the electrification megatrend, spanning electric vehicles, renewable energy infrastructure, power grid upgrades, and the energy-intensive buildout of AI data centres. BHP’s scale and reserve quality position it to capture premium margins relative to higher-cost producers should the supply deficit that many analysts project for the latter part of this decade materialise as expected.

What Lay Ahead

With BofA’s A$68 target implying approximately 12.8% upside from Thursday’s close, the upgrade adds meaningful institutional weight to the bull case for BHP at current levels. The A$60 technical support zone, combined with a fresh Buy rating from one of Wall Street’s most closely followed mining analysts, gives markets a reasonably well-defined risk-reward setup heading into Q4 2026.

From a technical standpoint, the cooling of momentum after the first-half surge could be healthy long term. The stock will move through the final quarter of the year as a stock with a strong fundamental story, and a well-defined technical floor, but there are plenty of hurdles to overcome if BHP is to retest highs, with the first technical obstacle the 50 day SMA at A$62.53.

Bull Case: