[concern] epidemic situation superimposed drought! The Chilean mining industry is too difficult

SMM4, April 8: according to Chilean media local time reported on April 6, the central region of the country with the capital Santiago as the center is experiencing a rare dry weather, the recent rainfall compared with the same period in history decreased by nearly 80%, at the same time, the precipitation in some northern provinces is 90% less than in previous years. Local rivers and reservoirs are nearing their lowest levels, and millions of people are already having trouble drinking water.

Some media have pointed out that at present, areas such as Santiago, where the drought is most serious, are precisely the hardest hit areas of Chile's new crown pneumonia epidemic, and one of the important means to prevent infection is to wash hands frequently. In the case of drought, washing hands with water may become a difficult problem. It is reported that the Chilean government has begun to deal with the problem of water shortage in the affected areas, using trucks to transport domestic water to more than 1.5 million people with water difficulties every day, and began to strengthen the cleaning and epidemic prevention work in the affected areas.

On the one hand, water shortage will cause the epidemic to seriously limit the resumption of production, even if the epidemic is slow to resume work, the mining of copper mines will be affected in the drought state, because the mining process requires the use of water for flotation and the use of water to transport tailings.

Chilean copper production was 466723 tons in January, up 1.4 percent from a year earlier, and 451580 tons in February, up 8.3 percent from a year earlier, according to INE data from Chilean Statistics. SMM expects Chile to produce 46-480000 tons of copper in March.

Monthly copper production in Chile (in kilotons)

Chile produced a total of 5.6 million tons of copper in 2019, ranking first in the world, according to Statista.

Ranking of Global Copper production by country in 2019 (in kilotons)

Since February, the output of a number of large mines in Chile has increased. Codelco production, the world's largest copper miner, rose 4.5 per cent to 120300 tonnes in February from a year earlier. Production at Escondida, the world's largest copper mine controlled by BHP Billiton, rose 15.1 per cent from a year earlier to 94500 tonnes. The Collahuasi mine, co-operated by Glencore and Anglo, increased production by 22.3 per cent year-on-year to 47100 tonnes.

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