Codelco grows copper output despite mine collapse

Chile’s state-owned copper giant Codelco, the world’s largest producer of the metal, expects 2025 and 2026 production to slightly surpass last year’s output, signalling resilience in the face of a deadly collapse at its El Teniente mine.

The company’s outlook offers a modest boost to an increasingly tight global copper market.

Codelco will slightly improve on last year’s copper production, chairman Máximo Pacheco told Bloomberg on Monday ahead of third-quarter results. This year’s output is also expected to edge higher, he said. The miner produced 1.4 million tonnes of copper in 2024.

In early October, the miner estimated that the July 31 accident at El Teniente would cut 2024 output by 48,000 tonnes, up from a previous forecast of 33,000 tonnes. The mine produced 356,000 tonnes last year and remains Codelco’s most profitable operation.

Withstands shock

For the first nine months of 2025, Codelco reported on Tuesday a pre-tax profit of $606.9 million, slightly below the $612.2 million recorded a year earlier. Copper output rose 2.1% year over year to 937,000 tonnes, despite the temporary shutdown caused by the deadly collapse.

Adding the contribution of El Abra (49%), Anglo American Sur (20%) and Quebrada Blanca (10%), total production reached 1.016 million tonnes, 1.4% more than in the third quarter last year. 

Codelco attributed the production growth largely to improved output at its Ministro Hales mine, which has focused on enabling extraction on more than one level, and the contributions of the Rajo Inca structural project in Salvador, which has been in the ramp-up phase since December 2024 and has contributed 21,200 tonnes this year. 

Conversely, the accident on July 31 resulted in a production decrease of 22,100 tonnes for the quarter.

“This increase is especially significant because we managed to maintain the growth trend in production, despite the complex scenario we faced following the accident at El Teniente,” CEO Rubén Alvarado said, adding that a fuller report on the incident is expected by year-end.

Impacts linger

While Codelco’s production from January to August was up 4% year over year, the accident’s effects will likely persist, Consultancy Plusmining said. “The issue is that the affected area contains replacement resources, and it seems the full impact won’t be felt until later,” founder Juan Carlos Guajardo said. “The real question remains for the years ahead.”

The collapse marked another setback in Codelco’s multi-billion-dollar push to revive aging mines and restore pre-pandemic production levels of 1.7 million tonnes, once enough to secure its title as the world’s top copper supplier. Some executives, however, are calling for a stronger focus on profitability as company debt nears $24 billion.

BMO Capital Markets analysts said the incident adds downside risk to their copper supply forecasts, which assumed Codelco output growth of 4% in 2025 and 3% in 2026. Their base case projects global copper deficits of about 200,000 tonnes next year and 300,000 tonnes in 2026, supporting an estimated price of $10,500 per tonne.