Thousands of Chilean copper miners have been infected with the new crown virus El Teniente. There have been 872 new crown cases in copper mines.

SMM7: 2433 workers in Chile's national copper industry have been infected with the new crown virus, with a total of more than 70, 000 employees, according to data compiled by the Copper Workers' Federation. Although Chile has managed to reduce the number of daily infections nationwide, cases have continued to increase in some key mining areas.

As of July 1, the mines hardest hit by Codelco were El Teniente and Chuquicamata, with 872 and 571 new crown cases, respectively.

In other copper mines, there were 173new crown cases in, Radomiro Tomic, 166new crown cases in, Mistro Hales, 162new crown cases in Andida, 145new crown cases in, Gabriela Mistral, 16 new crown cases in Salvador and 22 new crown cases in Ventanas.

A few days ago, Codelco has announced the suspension of its largest mine El Teniente expansion project, in addition, Chuquicamata smelting business has also been temporarily closed. BHP Billiton announced plans to scale back its Cerro Colorado mine last week.

Although new crown cases began to surge, the world's largest copper producer was still operating at near full capacity in May, with copper production totaling 495604 tons, up 0.67 per cent from a year earlier, according to the latest data from Chile's National Bureau of Statistics. Chile produced 474880 tons of copper in April and 492322 tons in May last year, according to Bloomberg.

Chilean copper production rose slightly by 0.67% to 495604 tons in May.

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