After earthquake, major copper mines restart activities in Chile

Despite the death toll and strong damages caused by last Saturday’s earthquake in Chile, most of the country’s largest copper mines are apparently undamaged, and some of them, with their own energy generation, restarted activities on Monday. Codelco’s El Teniente and Andina, and the mines operated by Barrick, Teck and Kinross are working normally while Freeport-McMoran’s Candelaria mine was affected by power shortage.

While miners resume output, it is uncertain how the quake will affect copper markets: the commodity jumped to its highest level in five weeks on the London Metal Exchange this morning, and an eventual suspension of mining activities would impact Chilean economy and copper world markets as the country is the world’s top copper producer.