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In 2025, Chile's copper mine production was estimated at *** million metric tons of metal content, representing about ** percent of the global copper production that year. After two years of economic upheaval across the globe resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, Chile's copper output dropped by about *** percent in comparison to 2019.

Global and domestic positioning

Chile can be considered in several aspects the most important player in the copper mining sector. In addition to housing the largest reserves worldwide, the Andean country is by far the largest copper producer, with an output equal to the following two countries combined. In the domestic context, copper exports represented nearly ** percent of the Chilean mining export value in 2023.

Leading players

Corporación Nacional del Cobre de Chile, commonly known as Codelco, is a Chilean state-owned company headquartered in Santiago. Established in 1976, Codelco is the leading mining company in the country, in terms of both copper output and revenue. Other leaders in the Chilean copper segment are Minera Escondida (controlled by Australian company BHP Billiton), which operates the largest copper mine in the world, and Collahuasi, which has British Anglo American and Swiss-based Glencore as its main shareholders.