{"id":1117730,"date":"2019-05-24T10:28:22","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T10:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=989183"},"modified":"2019-05-24T10:28:22","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T10:28:22","slug":"chiles-codelco-brushes-off-rumoured-copper-output-drop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1117730","title":{"rendered":"Chile\u2019s Codelco brushes off rumoured copper output drop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chile\u2019s Codelco, the world\u2019s No. 1 copper producer, has dismissed reports of a predicted 40% drop<\/a> in production over the next two years due to declining ore grades and the switch of its flagship Chuquicamata mine to underground from open pit.<\/p>\n

Instead, the mining company says it\u2019s following a detailed plan that will allow it to keep copper output at current levels<\/a> of around 1.7 million tonnes a year over the next decade.<\/p>\n

“Codelco’s mine plan is based on existing mines and projects , which will progressively and systematically replace our current operations,\u201d it said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Media reports Thursday said production at Chuquicamata would drop to around 182,000 tonnes by 2021 from 459,000 tonnes this year.<\/p>\n

State-owned miner says it\u2019s following a detailed plan that will allow it to keep copper output at current levels of around 1.7 million tonnes a year over the next decade.<\/q><\/p>\n

The fall would impact Codelco’s total production by around 4%, the articles stated.<\/p>\n

The state-owned copper miner said that since mining at the open-pit mine ends in 2020, which is when the underground section begins commercial operations, it will able to keep productive capacity unchanged.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0$5.6 billion-switch<\/a>\u00a0of Chuquicamata to underground cave mining from open pit, part of Codelco\u2019s 10-year, $39 billion-overhaul of its core assets,\u00a0is expected to extend the mine\u2019s life by at least 40 years.<\/p>\n

Annual production from \u201cChuqui\u201d \u2014 as it\u2019s often referred as \u2014 after it has fully transitioned to underground extraction is projected to be 320,000 tonnes of fine copper and 15,000 tonnes of molybdenum.<\/p>\n

Codelco, which hands over all of its profits to the state, holds vast copper deposits, accounting for 10% of the world’s known proven and probable reserves and about 11% of the global annual copper output with 1.8 million metric tonnes of production.<\/p>\n

Chuquicamata and the nearby by Radomiro Tomic mines produced 653,000 tonnes of the company’s total 1.8 million tonnes of output last year, which was almost 4% less than in 2017.<\/p>\n

Production decline, together with lower copper prices and higher costs, saw the company’s annual profits drop by a third last year to $2 billion, not counting paper losses worth almost $400 million, as it wrote down the value of its assets, including its Ventanas smelter and the open pit at its Salvador division.<\/p>\n

Ugly trend<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The world\u2019s main copper producing nations have been showing output declines this year<\/a>, according to the\u00a0latest monthly\u00a0bulletin<\/a>\u00a0from the International Copper Study Group (ICSG).<\/p>\n

Global production declined 2.4% in February 2019, when compared to the same month last year, with 1,515kt (19,749ktpa) of contained copper produced globally.<\/p>\n

Chile led the pack with output down 7.1 % y\/y to 415.9kt (5,412ktpa) while Peru, the second main global producer, saw its output fall by 5.1% y\/y to 176.1kt (2,296ktpa).<\/p>\n

The post Chile\u2019s Codelco brushes off rumoured copper output drop<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Media reports had said production at Chuquicamata would drop to around 182,000 tonnes by 2021 from 459,000 tonnes this year, addin that the fall would impact Codelco’s total production by around 4%.<\/p>\n

The post Chile’s Codelco brushes off rumoured copper output drop<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[539,439,1552,949,404,369,440,438,2640],"tags":[28,33,43,71],"class_list":["post-1117730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-base-metals","category-codelco","category-jobs","category-markets","category-mining-news-and-commentary","category-miningcom","category-south-america","category-suppliers-news","category-top-companies","tag-chile","tag-copper","tag-exploration","tag-latin-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1117730"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1117824,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117730\/revisions\/1117824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1117730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1117730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1117730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}