Executive President of Codelco: “Let’s go a bit about the production expectation for the year”

One of the main challenges that Codelco faces and that it outlined as an axis, is to become a sustainable mining company. This Thursday there was a milestone that goes along these lines, since in the El Teniente Division the first electric mining truck of the national industry debuted, carried out in conjunction with the generator Engie. In the instance in which the ministers of Mining, Baldo Prokurica, and of Economy, Lucas Palacios, also participated, the importance of the mining industry in the economic reactivation with a sustainable stamp was valued.

The executive president of the state company, Octavio Araneda, was the one who led the activity. There, in addition to explaining this milestone, he addressed other issues with PULSO, including the rise in the price of copper and the exchange rate, both elements that, in his opinion, are helping the state company.

How does Codelco estimate that the year will end in productive terms?

-We have a plan for this year to reach 1.63 million tons and we are betting to fulfill that. We do not see much difficulty in fulfilling it. In fact, to date we are a bit above what we had in the plan for the year. We are doing well in production and there is no decrease compared to last year.

Has the good price of copper in recent months helped in this complex year?

-Yeah right if. The price is very relevant, US $ 3 falls very well and the exchange rate helps a lot. In the end, this situation has arisen, which is not very common, in which you have a high copper price and a high exchange rate. So, that helps a lot in higher income and, therefore, on the other hand, costs in dollars lower. 50% of the expenses are in that, so it is very good. We will deliver results at the end of the month and it will be reflected there.

The projects under construction that were paralyzed for some months of this year by Covid-19, are they all already reactivated?

-We are now in a rump up, returning to normality. In some of them we are at 100%, as in the Traspaso Andina y Chuquicamata project. At Nuevo Nivel Mina Teniente we are at 60%. By the end of the year, we should be at 100%.

Were the estimated dates for the completion of these projects delayed?

-Obviously this thing has an impact of a few months, but we are analyzing them. As these are long-term projects, we are looking at how we can mitigate that impact on time, and that is part of the work that project managers have to do today. There is still a bit of uncertainty and we do not know what will happen to the vaccine or what will happen next year. We are pointing out that by the end of the year we should achieve 100% of normality, that a second wave does not come and with that the impact should be quite limited.

Major Covid-19 outbreaks were seen in the middle of the year, what is the current situation?

-We are in a very controlled situation and with a low level of contagion. This is mainly due to the high level of testing we are doing. We are doing about 80 thousand tests per month. We are practically testing all the people who work in the Corporation, both our own and collaborators in each shift cycle. That allows us to do a very good control of people who could be infected and, in fact, of the few cases that we are having, almost 70% of them are asymptomatic. We have a fairly well-armed system, we have generated a strong organization for traceability as well and together with the very strong testing that we have developed in recent months and the isolation of the cases that appear, we have controlled the infections quite well.

How much is the current figure?

-In Teniente we are having 2 or 3 daily cases and globally we are having 10 daily cases.