Codelco’s Andina Division Inactive due to Violent Protests

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Operations at Andina Division owned by Codelco, Chile’s state-owned copper company, stopped working on July 9, 2007 due to subcontract worker protests. Operations remain inactive since the Company cannot guarantee safe working conditions.

Codelco’s main business is the exploration, development and exploitation of copper mineral resources and byproducts. Its operations are carried out in five divisions: Codelco Norte, Salvador, Ventanas, Andina and El Teniente Divisions, all of them located in northern and central parts of the Andean country. Chile’s state-owned copper company has a total of 1.8 million tons of copper per year production capacity.

Andina Division, located northeast of Santiago de Chile, operates the Rio Blanco deposit, which produced around 248,000 metric tons of fine copper in 2006 and normally delivers 3,300 metric tons of Molybdenum per year. The Salvador Division, located in the Andes Mountain region north of Santiago, was operating at 25% capacity on July 12 2007 due to similar strikes. Salvador exploits oxide and sulfide minerals producing 80,600 metric tons of copper cathodes per year. The El Teniente mine, located south of Santiago de Chile, is currently working normally; however, ore extraction was temporarily stopped because of intense protests of the mine’s outsourced workers. Codelco Norte, created in 2002 after the merger of the Chuquicamata and Radomino Tomic Divisions, and Ventanas Division, located in Puchuncavi district, northern Valparaiso province, are operating without inconveniences.

According to Jose Pablo Arellano’s declarations, Codelco’s President, Chilean state owned copper company estimates that damages produced during the strikes and their consequences in its production have already brought a total of $40 million loss to the company.

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