Stockholm-based mining and infrastructure equipment group Epiroc published its second-quarter 2026 interim report on Friday, July 17 — the same day as larger peer Sandvik and truck maker Volvo Group — and completed a remarkable week for the Swedish industrial complex that supplies Portugal’s mines. Orders received rose 13% to SEK 17,305 million, all of it organic, with large orders (above SEK 150 million) jumping to SEK 720 million from SEK 230 million a year earlier.
Revenues increased 10% to SEK 16,702 million, an 11% organic gain partly offset by currency. Operating profit climbed 17% to SEK 3,316 million, lifting the operating margin to 19.9% from 18.7%, while the adjusted margin reached 20.1%. Basic earnings per share rose to SEK 2.01 from SEK 1.74, and operating cash flow nearly doubled to SEK 1,902 million. Net debt fell to 0.75 times EBITDA.
“Just as in recent quarters, the customer activity within mining remained at a high level, supported by historically high mineral prices in segments to which we have a large exposure, such as copper and gold,” said President and CEO Helena Hedblom, singling out a 30% organic increase in equipment orders, with exploration the fastest-growing category. Sequentially, organic orders eased 9% from a first quarter swollen by large equipment deals — a normalisation, not a turn: Epiroc expects mining demand to “remain high” and infrastructure demand to increase somewhat.
Why this print matters south of the Pyrenees
Epiroc is the least-covered of the three Swedish names that dominate Iberian hard-rock mining, but its Portuguese footprint is concrete and growing. The group employs 52 people in Portugal, running a commercial base in Oeiras and a service presence at Aljustrel in the Alentejo mining belt, as the company detailed to Portuguese business daily ECO this spring. Its equipment works the country’s two flagship underground operations — Boliden Somincor’s Neves-Corvo copper-zinc mine, where the Swedish owner has invested some €430 million over four years, and Almina’s Aljustrel complex.
The infrastructure side of Epiroc’s business has a Portuguese address too: the group’s equipment is engaged on the Metro do Porto Ruby Line tunnelling works, and its team told ECO it would “always be interested” in future Lisbon metro contracts. When Hedblom points to improving investment sentiment in infrastructure and construction, Portugal — with metro extensions in two cities and a high-speed rail programme moving through procurement — is precisely the kind of market that commentary describes.
Copper and gold exposure runs through the Alentejo
Hedblom’s framing — historically high copper and gold prices driving sustained customer activity — reads as a near-perfect description of the Portuguese pyrite belt. Neves-Corvo is one of Europe’s most significant copper and zinc producers, delivering over 30,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate in 2025, and its Swedish owner reports its own second quarter on Monday, July 21. Aljustrel’s zinc-and-copper operation sits in the same geology a few dozen kilometres away. Exploration — Epiroc’s fastest-growing order category this quarter — is exactly the spending line that high metal prices reignite in districts like these, where brownfield drilling is the cheapest route to new reserves.
The greenfield story is lithium. Savannah Resources’ Mina do Barroso project in northern Portugal remains western Europe’s most advanced hard-rock lithium development, and the battery-electric loaders and automation-ready rigs Epiroc showcased at its World Expo in Örebro in June — including the diesel-electric Minetruck MT66 S eDrive and automated bolting systems — are the product categories that a new-build Portuguese lithium mine would be shopping for.
Three prints, one signal
Taken together, the week’s Swedish results describe a single Iberian equipment cycle from three angles. Volvo Group reported record truck orders on Thursday morning; Sandvik followed hours later with SEK 37.8 billion in orders, up 17% organically; Epiroc closed the week with 13% organic order growth and a 30% equipment surge. For Portuguese mine operators, contractors and the supplier ecosystem around Oeiras, São Domingos de Rana and Aljustrel, the message is consistent: the Nordic groups that equip Portugal’s underground economy are investing through the cycle, and their service networks in the country keep deepening.
What to watch next. Boliden’s Q2 report lands Monday at 07:30 CEST — the demand-side companion to this week’s supply-side prints, and the first clean year-on-year comparison for Neves-Corvo under Swedish ownership. Verisure reports July 30, Vestas on August 12 and Pandora on August 13. The corridor’s earnings season is only half done.