Canadian diversified miner Teck Resources on Wednesday announced that it had suspended construction activities at the $4.8-billion Quebrada Blanca Phase 2 (QB2) project to support Chile’s efforts to limit the transmission of Covid-19.
The suspension would be for an initial two weeks, at which point Teck would reassess the status of the project.
About 15 000 people work on the QB2 project, which would produce 316 000 t/y of copper-equivalent in its first five years of operation.
The suspension of QB2 comes a day after Anglo American withdrew its 10 000-strong workforce at the 300 000 t/y Quellaveco copper project, in neighbouring Peru, to comply with a government-imposed 15-day quarantine period in that country.