Chile: National copper production fell 5.3% last year

The copper production in Chile reached 5.33 million tons last year, which meant a year-on-year reduction of 5.3%. Only in December this indicator fell 0.5% in December to 495,800 tons, according to data from the Chilean Copper Commission (Cochilco).

In detail, the main miners of the red metal closed unevenly in December and all of 2022, at a time when they face lower ore grades and some operational obstacles.

Thus, Cochilco explained that Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, lost 11.8% in the last month of 2022 to reach 145,100 tons. With this, the state company recorded a decline of -10.1% last year to 1.55 million tons.

Meanwhile, the extraction of Escondida – the largest copper deposit in the world and controlled by BHP – fell 1% year-on-year, to 85,500 tons in December, and closed 2022 with an advance of 4.2% to 1.05 million tons.

On the other hand, Collahuasi —a partnership of Glencore and Anglo American— recorded a year-on-year increase of 2.8% in its production in the month, to 51,300 tons, with which it fell -9.4% in the year to 570,800 tons.

Copper production in Peru

For its part, copper production in Peru, the second largest producer of this metal in the world, up to November of last year totaled 2,187,058.3 tons, which is equivalent to a growth of 3.4% in relation to what registered the same period of 2021, according to the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

In November, this amounted to 224,976 tons, which meant an interannual growth of 15.3% compared to the 195,117 tons registered in the same month of the previous year.

With information from Reuters.