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Codelco Restarts Chuquicamata Following Brief Production Halt
Jul. 28, 2015 06:31PM PST
Base Metals Investing Chile’s Codelco has restarted its Chuquicamata mine after protesters briefly halted operations on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Contract workers affiliated with the Confederation of Copper Workers have been on strike since July 21 according to the news outlet.
Chile’s Codelco has restarted its Chuquicamata mine after protesters briefly halted operations on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Contract workers affiliated with the Confederation of Copper Workers have been on strike since July 21 according to the news outlet.
As quoted in the publication:
State-run Codelco [COBRE.UL], the world’s No. 1 copper miner, said it had halted operations at Chuquicamata on Tuesday morning, after protesters cut off mine access roads and threw stones at vehicles as shifts changed.
By afternoon, operations had “normalized”, the company said in a statement.
Codelco is undertaking an ambitious investment plan to revamp its aging mines at a time when the copper price is at multi-year lows.
Century-old Chuquicamata’s contribution has declined as its ore grades have diminished, but it still had output of 340,000 tonnes of copper in 2014, or about 2 percent of global output.