Chile’s Codelco has said that it is making progress in the construction of three copper projects—Chuquicamata mine, Traspaso Andina, and Nuevo Nimel Mina—this year.
Construction of the Chuquicamata Subterránea mining project is 99pc complete, the miner said in its H1 2020 operations report recently. This project is expected to produce 389,000mt of copper this year and will have a life of around 40 years. The Chuquicamata project is one of the largest open-pit copper mines in the world and is located 1,650km north of Santiago, Chile.
The second project, Traspaso Andina, is 87pc completed, Codelco said. The project includes constructing a new crushing line to maintain División Andina’s current production capacity of around 83,460.90mt minerals per day and generate around 217724.33mt of fine copper per year.
Codelco also gave an update on its Nuevo Nivel Mina mining project which is 61pc completed. This project includes expanding the El Teniente mine and increasing its processing capacity from 124,284mt of copper per day to 391,903mt per year, according to figures from the company.
Codelco produced 796,100mt in H1 2020, up by 3.5pc from 769,400mt produced in the same period last year, according to the latest data released by the Chilean Copper Commission (Cochilco).
Chile’s copper prices are expected to end 2020 at $2.62/lb, 23¢/lb lower than the guidance announced in January, due to the uncertainties in the market produced by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Copper prices reached $2.99/lb on Thursday, August 27, down by 0.02pc compared the prior day, according to data from Cochilco. Chile copper production is expected to fell by 1.2pc to 5.71mn mt in 2020, from 5.78mn mt in 2019.