Global Slice 🌍: Copper

Contents

Notes

[ This was recommended by Chris on Nov 30th ]
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-all-the-known-copper-in-the-world/ .

[ Below is from 10 minerals.docx ]

0.87 billion
Mostly in Chile

Of 20 million produced global-ly:

Chile 5.6 million

Peru
China

Chile produces more than one quarter of the world’s copper, and is also by far the country with the largest cop-per reserves.

https://www.statista.com/topics/1409/copper/

In Chile:
Top copper producers include the Chilean government-owned Codelco, BHP Group, Glencore, Anglo-American and Antofagasta.

Chile’s top copper mines include:

Chuquicamata (Codelco-owned and the sec-ond deepest as well as one of the largest open-pit mines in the world)
Escondida (owned by BHP Group, Rio Tinto and Japan Escondida)
El Teniente (operated by Codelco and the world’s largest underground mine)
Collahuasi (Chile’s second-largest copper mine and owned by Anglo-American, Glen-core, Mitsui and JX Holdings)
Los Bronces (owned by Anglo American, Mitsubishi Corp., Codelco, and Mitsui)
Los Pelambres (owned by Antofagasta Plc, Nippon Mining and Mitsubishi Materials)
Radomiro Tomic (operated by Codelco).

Copper consumption ranks third in the world, behind iron and aluminium. Most of the metal produced is used for electrical applications.

Chile – miner’s strike 2019, president Sebastian Piñera, announced some concessions: a guaranteed minimum wage of about $3.5 an hour, a tax increase for those earning over $11,000 a month, and lifting basic pensions by 20%. Unions putting pressure on the government to increase royalties on copper con-centrate exports to fund public projects.

Chile remains dependent on exports from the copper industry, which nurtures a large ancillary network of suppliers. The depressed long-term outlook for cop-per prices therefore has far-reaching ripple effects for employment, wages, government revenue, and nation-al income.

Profiling the world’s top five copper mining countries in 2020

http://www.saisperspectives.com/covid19-pandemic/2020/8/11/chile-and-covid-19-copper-prices-inequality-and-economic-outlook

Copper Production

Total copper mined in 2017 was 20,032,658 tonnes. Divided equally between all 7.5 billion people, this would be 26 kilograms per person; divided between 10 million, 20 kilograms; divided between 12.5 billion, 16 kilograms.

The top 10 producing countries are listed and charted below. Click the “â–¶Remaining countries” legend under the chart to see the others.

CountryTonnes mined
Chile5,503,500
Peru2,445,585
China1,706,400
USA1,260,000
Congo, Democratic Republic1,094,638
Australia849,121
Zambia786,731
Russia762,300
Mexico742,246
Indonesia622,030
Copper production for 2017, top 10 countries, kg.
From https://www2.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/statistics/wms.cfc?method=searchWMS :
Data type=”Production”, Commodity=”copper, mine”, Dates=2017, Countries=”All countries”.
Data as above, but charted.
â–¶Remaining countries
Canada597,194
Kazakhstan557,800
Poland419,000
Brazil384,542
Mongolia310,700
Iran295,621
Spain198,353
Laos153,304
Uzbekistan140,100
Burma116,000
Papua New Guinea105,419
Sweden104,450
Armenia97,705
Turkey83,000
Bulgaria73,003
Philippines68,156
South Africa65,503
Portugal63,812
Finland53,144
Serbia44,800
Saudi Arabia36,279
Morocco35,400
India33,708
Argentina33,300
Mauritania28,791
Vietnam21,451
Namibia15,534
Georgia15,000
Tanzania11,500
Pakistan10,052
Dominican Republic9,618
Colombia9,355
North Macedonia9,000
Zimbabwe8,839
Ecuador8,200
Eritrea7,900
Kyrgyzstan7,500
Romania7,400
Bolivia7,219
Tajikistan6,100
Azerbaijan1,991
Korea, Dem. P.R. of1,800
Cyprus1,293
Botswana1,239
Slovakia32
Albania0
Oman0
Panama0
Data as above, but for the remaining countries.