Antofagasta copper production up despite cutbacks

Cecilia Jamasmie | April 22, 2020 | 6:53 am Markets Latin America Copper

Antofagasta sees slight dent to copper output despite virus cutbacks

Strong grades at the Centinela mine helped copper production in the three months to March climb 4.6% to 194,000 tonnes. (Image courtesy of Minera Centinela.)

Chilean miner Antofagasta (LON:ANTO) said on Wednesday it expected coronavirus-related restrictions to slightly affect copper production for 2020, as about two-thirds of its workforce are still on-site at its all its operations.

Strong grades at its Centinela mine helped copper production in the three months to March. It climbed 4.6% to 194,000 tonnes, compared with the previous quarter, and 2.9% on the same period a year ago.

The miner has halted Los Pelabres expansion project for about four months and is operating with about two-thirds of its workforce in Chile

Costs fell to $1.10 per pound, around 27 cents per pound lower because of a weaker Chilean peso, higher production and tighter cost control.

The company is cutting spending for the year to less than $1.3 billion compared to an original plan of $1.5 billion, even though it has suspended an expansion at its Los Pelambres mine for four months and deferred other development projects.

Antofagasta also said it expected full-year copper output to be at the lower end of its range of 725,000-755,000 tonnes, assuming that operations will continue to run at or close to capacity and no coronavirus shutdowns would be required.

“Copper production, costs and capital expenditure guidance for 2020 is highly dependent on how the health emergency evolves over the coming months,” it said in the statement.

Prices for the bellwether metal fell to by 7.3% to $2.1495 a pound ($4,740 a tonne) on Tuesday, a three-week low. Last month, copper briefly traded below $2, levels last seen during the global financial crisis of 2008-2009.