Aurubis earnings drop in late 2025

Hamburg, Germany-based recycled-content nonferrous metals producer Aurubis AG has reported a 25 percent boost in revenue in the final quarter of 2025 compared with one year earlier. However, earnings per share (EPS) in its most recent quarter fell by 18 percent year on year.

The company, which predominantly makes copper, says its decline in earnings was due in part to lower treatment and refining charges for smelting copper concentrates, scheduled higher depreciation and a regular maintenance shutdown that was brought forward at its Hamburg smelter site.

The October through December 2025 timeframe represents the first quarter of Aurubis’ 2025-2026 fiscal year. Aurubis says a decrease in return on capital expenses during the current fiscal year is “attributable to growth projects still in implementation.”

The company says it maintained profitability—earning more than $100 million in late 2025—because of “a considerably higher year-over-year metal result driven by higher metal prices, especially for precious metals.”

Aurubis credits its primary smelters with a stable performance, but says it experienced “a slight input-material-related dip in revenue in the recycling area” in late 2025.

“The first quarter [of the fiscal year] underscored the exceptional effectiveness of our multimetal capabilities coupled with diversified earnings drivers yet again,” says Aurubis CEO Dr. Toralf Haag. “This broad foundation underpins our resilience and provides security. In this context and with market conditions improving, raising our full-year forecast was the logical next step.”

Aurubis says the improved forecast is based on higher metal prices and what it calls very good overall demand for the company’s copper products.

The company also says it now has executed roughly 80 percent of the estimated $2 billion investment program for strategic projects.

That program includes the recyclec-content Aurubis Richmond facility in the United States, which Aurubis says currently is undergoing a scheduled ramp-up for phase 1 following commissioning. Once complete, the site will process around 180,000 metric tons of printed circuit boards and other obsolete scrap materials per year. 

The Complex Recycling Hamburg (CRH) project is scheduled for commissioning in the first half of this year. That facility will be able to process around 30,000 metric tons of additional recyclable materials beyond its previous capacity, says the firm.