TY - CONF

T1 - Different approaches towards copper mining productivity in Chile

AU - Roa, Cintia

AU - Sanchez, Felipe

PY - 2022/11/16

Y1 - 2022/11/16

N2 - Facing the natural decay of the geological quality of mineral deposits, a volatile prices scenario, and being immersed in a climate change context with increasing demands from the general population for more sustainable operations, productivity is at the center of mining companies’ concerns, as a critical factor to secure the economic feasibility of the activity. In this study, the productivity of the Chilean copper mining industry is characterized, by following different -but complementary- approaches. First, labor productivity and equipment efficiency indicators are calculated for a representative sample of the medium and large-scale sectors. Additionally, the evolution of the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) of the industry is estimated over the 2004-2020 period. The TFP estimation shows that productivity has fallen close to 20% from 2004 to 2020, but it also reveals that from 2009 onwards it has remained relatively stable. Moreover, during 2016-2020, the TFP presents an upward trend with an average annual growth of 4.4%, which could be interpreted as the result of the effort made by companies to improve the efficiency of their processes after the last copper price super-cycle.

AB - Facing the natural decay of the geological quality of mineral deposits, a volatile prices scenario, and being immersed in a climate change context with increasing demands from the general population for more sustainable operations, productivity is at the center of mining companies’ concerns, as a critical factor to secure the economic feasibility of the activity. In this study, the productivity of the Chilean copper mining industry is characterized, by following different -but complementary- approaches. First, labor productivity and equipment efficiency indicators are calculated for a representative sample of the medium and large-scale sectors. Additionally, the evolution of the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) of the industry is estimated over the 2004-2020 period. The TFP estimation shows that productivity has fallen close to 20% from 2004 to 2020, but it also reveals that from 2009 onwards it has remained relatively stable. Moreover, during 2016-2020, the TFP presents an upward trend with an average annual growth of 4.4%, which could be interpreted as the result of the effort made by companies to improve the efficiency of their processes after the last copper price super-cycle.

UR - https://copper2022.cl/

M3 - Paper

SP - 61

EP - 72

T2 - Copper Conference

Y2 - 13 November 2022 through 17 November 2022

ER -