Codelco Increases Copper Output for 1st Time Since 2004

Monday, Mar 01, 2010

Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, increased production in 2009 for the first time in five years, helped by a new mine.

Production reached 1.78 million metric tons, the highest since 2006, boosted by a full year of output from the Gabriela Mistral mine, the company said in a presentation in Santiago today. Output in 2008 was 15 percent less at 1.55 million tons.

State-owned Codelco spent $2.2 billion last year to develop its copper reserves, the world’s largest, to meet rising demand for power cables and electrical wire from China. Declining Codelco output prompted prices to rise 140 percent last year on the London Metal Exchange.

“We are observing a market that remains strong,” Chief Executive Officer Jose Pablo Arellano told reporters in Santiago today. Demand from China, the world’s largest buyer of the metal, remains “firm,” he said.

Codelco’s net income fell 20 percent to $1.26 billion last year from $1.57 billion in 2008, according to data posted today on the Web site of Chile’s securities regulator. The company didn’t provide fourth-quarter results.

Codelco increased production in 2009 at its Chuquicamata copper mine, part of its largest Norte division. The mine in the Atacama Desert, which was once exploited by the Guggenheim family, is now in its 95th year of production.

There are “opportunities” to expand production at Norte this year, Arellano said.

 

Source: Bloomberg