Copper: Humanity’s first and most important future metal
Millions of feet of copper wiring will be required for strengthening the world’s power grids, and hundreds of thousands of tonnes more are needed to build wind and solar farms.
Chile’s National Institute of Statistics (INE in Spanish) reported that the country’s Mining Production Index (IPMin) fell by 9.3% in December 2020 when compared to December 2019.
According to the INE, the fall is a consequence of reduced activity in all three sectors that make up the index, particularly in the metallic mining sector which dropped by 9.3% in December and subtracted 8.8 percentual points from the index.
The fall is a consequence of reduced activity in all three sectors that make up the index
In its report, the Institute said that the metallic mining sector, in fact, saw a 9.7% decrease in copper extraction and processing in the last month of 2020. This reduction has been attributed to both lower grades and a slower-than-expected pace in the resumption of operations that were halted due to covid-19-related restrictions.
The non-metallic mining sector, on the other hand, saw lower production of caliche and, thus, fell by 6.1%.
The third component of the Mining Production Index, the energy sector, dropped by 29% when compared to December 2019, as a result of lower production of crude oil, coal and natural gas.
Overall, however, the IPMin grew by 0.5% in 2020, a small boost caused by a 0.4% rise in production in the metallic mining sector.
