By Fabian Cambero
VALPARAISO, Chile, June 24 (Reuters) – Chile’s state-owned Codelco, one of the world’s largest copper producers, will consider asset sales and partnerships as part of a broader review of its investment priorities, Chairman Bernardo Fontaine said on Wednesday.
Whether the company should sell assets has been debated for years, with successive leadership teams taking differing views.
The move could mark a shift under Fontaine’s new leadership of the miner, which transfers its profits to the state and has long argued that the policy has constrained investment and contributed to its debt burden.
Codelco is under pressure from the government of President Jose Antonio Kast, who appointed Fontaine as chairman, after an internal audit uncovered irregularities in last year’s production reporting. The company is also trying to recover from a sharp downturn in 2022 and 2023, when copper output fell to its lowest level in two decades.
“We have been making progress on a comprehensive review of the company’s situation, which is ongoing and will take about three to four months to complete the full diagnosis and the improvement plan,” Fontaine told a lower-house congressional committee.
As part of that process, Codelco will decide whether to proceed with or postpone certain investments and assess its portfolio to determine whether it should retain all of its assets or seek sales or partnerships, Fontaine said.
Codelco operates some of Chile’s biggest copper mines, including Chuquicamata and El Teniente. It also holds partial ownership of several others, including 49% in El Abra alongside Freeport-McMoRan and 10% in Quebrada Blanca with Teck.
(Reporting by Fabian Cambero; Writing by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Kylie Madry and Alistair Bell)
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