Codelco Copper Industry continues to promote Underground Mining expansion of Chuquicamata Copper Mine

SMM8 13-the world's largest copper producer Chile Codelco state-owned copper industry has approved the transformation of its Chuquicamata open-pit copper mine into an underground copper mine. Chuquicamata Copper Mine, which has a history of one hundred years, is the second largest copper ore company under the company. At present, Chuquicamata's ore reserves are about to dry up, and the company has to mine an underground mine in order to enable Codelco to continue to maintain the mine's production, despite the mine's declining ore grade and rising asset costs. The $4.9 billion investment is part of Codelco's $39 billion core mine renovation plan, which will extend the mining life of the Chuqicamata copper mine by another 50 years. Earlier, the Chilean government decided to inject $1 billion into the state-owned miner to help it fund the upgrading of the old mine. Chuqicamata copper has been handing over all its profits to the government, and the mine has large copper reserves, accounting for 10 per cent of the world's known and potentially proven reserves and a production capacity of 1.8 million tons, or about 11 per cent of the world's annual copper production. In 2017, Chuquicamata produced 330900 tons of copper, while Codelco produced 1.734 million tons of copper.