Codelco says it will wait to evaluate financing for El Abra expansion
Freeport McMoran, which owns 51% of the mine, plans to invest around $7.5 billion to expand.
Copper mining in Peru, the world’s No. 2 producer, is almost completely recovered from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, a government official said on Tuesday.
Peru’s copper production, however, fell 2.2% in July, compared with the same period a year earlier, to 198,796 tons, under the weight of the pandemic, which restricted mining, the vice minister of energy and mines, Jaime Galvez, said in a virtual conference.
The Peruvian government decreed a quarantine due to the coronavirus in mid-March, with special restrictions on mining activity. The industry, a key economic engine for the Andean country, began to gradually normalize operations in May.
Earlier in August, the government said production of the red metal plunged 20.4% in the first half of 2020 versus the same period in 2019.
(By Marco Aquino and Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Chris Reese and Jonathan Oatis)
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