Vedanta's KCM restarts Nchanga copper smelter after 106-day overhaul

Sindicato N°2 de Supervisores y Staff, which represents more than 1,000 supervisors and employees at BHP’s Escondida copper mine in Chile, has urged members to reject the company’s final wage proposal and support strike action. Union president Alexis Barrera said the leadership unanimously rejected the offer, arguing that it failed to meet workers’ demands and required employees to perform multiple tasks. The proposal will be presented to union members this week, with voting scheduled for September 28–30. If members vote in favour of a strike, Escondida’s operations could face further labour-relations risks. The union’s current contract expires on September 30, 2026. It remains unclear whether a strike will take place or how long it could last, with the vote and further negotiations to be closely watched.

Eldorado Gold's Skouries copper-gold project in northern Greece has produced its first copper-gold concentrate, moving the mine from construction into commissioning. The site has stockpiled roughly 4.6 million tonnes of ore to feed the plant. Designed to yield about 140,000 ounces of gold and 67 million pounds of copper a year, Skouries is scheduled to reach commercial production in the fourth quarter of 2026. As one of Europe's few large new copper-gold developments, the start-up adds regional refined-copper and gold-concentrate supply amid tight global copper markets.

Mongolia’s National Statistics Office reported molybdenum concentrate output, on a contained-metal basis, of 382.0 tonnes in August 2026, down 10.0% MoM but up 8.7% YoY. Jan–Aug output totaled 3,672.5 tonnes, up 9.2% YoY. August production was 42.4 tonnes below July but 30.5 tonnes above a year earlier. Mongolia’s cumulative supply therefore remained ahead of 2025 despite softer short-term output. The table provides no company-level breakdown, so the cause of the monthly decline cannot be confirmed.