Chile’s court halts operations at Antofagasta copper warehouse

Chile’s court halts operations at Antofagasta copper warehouseA Chilean court has ordered port operator Antofagasta Terminal Internacional to halt operations at one of its copper stockpiling warehouses for a month because of health risks from nearby particles.

The move, local paper El Dinamo reports (in Spanish), follows a similar decision by the environmental court Friday, asking the terminal operator to suspend activities at another stockpiling warehouse also for 30 days.

Both warehouses are owned by Luksic Group, one of the richest family-owned businesses in Chile, with interests spanning metal processing and manufacturing, electric power distribution, general manufacturing, shipping, agriculture, fishing, food processing, and forestry sectors.

The temporary shutdown at the first facility was not expected to impact the country’s copper exports, but it will affect the stockpiling of material used by a Glencore smelter.

Last week, a local court in northern Chile ordered Antofagasta Plc (LON:ANTO) to destroy a giant dam it constructed for its Minera Los Pelambres copper mine, 200km north of Santiago.

Image courtesy of Atiport.