BHP Billiton is ramping up operations at the Escondida copper mine in Chile after a crippling six-week strike, but still has no date for a resumption of normal production levels, a senior executive said Tuesday.
"We are producing now and our equipment is operating, but not at full capacity," Daniel Malchuk, president of Americas minerals operations at BHP Billiton, told journalists at the World Copper Conference in Santiago.
Malchuk said the company is still working a recovery program for the mine, adding that BHP Billiton will outline the impact of the strike on Escondida's output in results due for release on April 26.
A second shift of workers is due to begin working at the open pit mine next week.
The executive said the company is not rushing the ramp up back to pre-strike output levels.
"We have taken the restart after the strike quite calmly, in order to focus on issues like safety," said Malchuk.
BHP Billiton halted all operations at the mine after workers walked out on February 9 following failed pay talks.
The mine produced just over 1 million mt of copper in concentrate and cathode in 2016, making it the world's largest copper mine by output.
BHP Billiton owns 57.5% of the Escondida mine. Another 30% is owned by Rio Tinto and the balance is held by two consortia of Japanese companies.
The No. 1 Escondida Workers union, which represents more than 2,500 employees at the open pit operation, voted March 22 to return to work after 44 days on strike, despite not having reached an agreement on a new pay deal with management.
Instead, it made use of a little-used clause in Chile's labor code allowing workers to extend their existing contract by 18 months, meaning its members lose out on a signing bonus or wage increase, but can renegotiate a new deal in 2018 after a new pro-union labor law has come into effect.
The strike is estimated to have cost Escondida more than 200,000 mt in copper production and as much as $1 billion in 2017 sales revenues.
Chilean copper production fell by a record 17% year on year in February to 376,948 mt, its lowest monthly figure in almost six years, as a result of the strike.
The stoppage is also expected to have a debilitating effect on the wider economy, according to Chile's Finance Minister Rodrigo Valdes. Growth figures for February will be published on Wednesday.
Construction of a new desalinization plant on the coast and the expansion of a concentrator plant at the mine, both of which were blockaded by workers throughout the strike, has also resumed.
The two projects, due for completion later this year, were central to plans to lift production at Escondida above 1.2 million mt/year over the next decade. "We have lost many, many days of construction so commissioning will be delayed," Malchuk said.
