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It is hard not to be impressed by Escondida’s scale. From one edge of the world’s largest copper mine, the huge trucks crawling up the other side nearly four kilometres away look like ants scurrying up and down an anthill.

Every year, the mine’s 171 trucks move twice as much earth as was excavated to build the Panama Canal. “Did we think it would be so big? No, we didn’t,” says Edgar Basto, who runs the mine for BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining group.

But Escondida is big – and growing: BHP has plans to relocate another plant to allow the mine to expand even further. As a result, after several years of falling production, the mine is on track to boost output by 20 per cent in the year to June.

The story is echoed across the copper industry. After a decade of struggling with ageing mines and troublesome new projects, the world’s copper miners are boosting supplies at the fastest rate in a decade.

“A lot of projects were stalled at the back end of 2008. We’re now getting the full effects of the catch-up phase,” says Richard Wilson, chairman of metals at Wood Mackenzie, a consultancy. But investors are not cheering the miners on.

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RANCAGUA, Chile, Apr 10 (IPS) – El Teniente, the world’s largest underground copper mine, has already been in operation since 1905, but the state-owned National Copper Corporation of Chile (CODELCO) wants to keep it running for another 50 years.

This, however, will require the acquisition of cutting-edge technology and an investment of 3.278 dollars – roughly equivalent to the total amount invested in the mine since it was first opened. El Teniente is located in the Andes mountain range, 150 kilometres south of Santiago. In 2010, it accounted for 25 percent of CODELCO’s total copper production.

The entire copper industry was nationalised in 1971 and is a major source of revenue for Chile, the world’s leading producer of the metal. The current production in Level 8 at El Teniente is 137,000 tons per day (TPD), which translates into 434,000 tons of fine copper a year.

But the copper is running out in this section, which only contains enough reserves to last until 2025. This is why CODELCO is undertaking the New Mine Level project, to reach the 2.02 billion tons of copper reserves located deeper down, at an altitude of 1,880 metres and 100 metres beneath El Teniente. The goal is for the new level to enter into operation in 2017.

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SANTIAGO, Apr 2 2013 (IPS) – The Chilean government has warned of the potential flight of mining and energy investments to Peru because of court rulings that have paralysed large-scale mining projects in the north of the country. But this fear is unfounded, at least in the short term.

Peru and Chile are in the top ten world destinations for investment in non-ferrous metal exploration, according to the Metals Economics Group, which collects information about the industry. In its 2013 report it places Chile fifth and Peru sixth, while Latin America heads the ranking of regions, receiving 25 percent of exploration investment capital.

Chile is the world’s top producer of copper and the country with the largest reserves for future extraction. Mining investment is concentrated mainly in the north, near the borders with Peru, Bolivia and Argentina, where mines are estimated to consume 80 percent of the area’s electricity.

Against a backdrop of rising energy demand, industry owners have expressed concern about several court rulings and administrative decisions against mining projects.

One high-profile case was that of the Castilla plant, a project of the MPX Energia company owned by Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista, that was to be the largest coal-fired generating plant in South America.

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The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

A one-day strike at state copper miner Codelco of Chile may mark just the beginning of supply disruptions in a country producing about a third of the world’s copper.

Union workers at Codelco, which operates seven mines and expects to produce about 1.7 million tonnes of copper in 2013, launched the 24-hour strike on Tuesday with demands for better working conditions and pensions and an end to the use of sub-contractors.

While largely symbolic, the strike coincides with the CRU/CESCO week in Santiago, one of the world’s largest mining conferences dedicated to the copper industry.

Chile is the world’s largest copper producer. It is also host to such global mining giants as BHP Billiton Ltd., Anglo American PLC and Canada’s Teck Resources Ltd. It is a chief supplier to No. 1 consumer China. Codelco alone supplies more than 10 per cent of annual global supply.

The strike comes also as candidates launch presidential campaigns for elections in November, when Chile’s left will try to wrest power back from the right after conservative president Sebastian Pinera in 2010 ended 20 years of leftist rule.

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