By Juan Carlos Guajardo, Director Ejecutivo de Plusmining.
Chile is facing a mining paradox. Copper prices have reached exceptionally high levels, averaging more than US$6 per pound this year. The market remains tight, strategic demand for copper continues to strengthen, and the country has a large-scale pipeline of mining investments. However, although Chile has one of the world’s largest mineral resource bases and investment pipelines, over the past decade this advantage has failed to translate into new production capacity.
More concerning still, both domestic production and Chile’s share of global output have followed a downward trajectory. Twenty years ago, Chile accounted for 35% of global copper production; today, its share stands at just 23%. During the first half of 2026, Chile produced 6.6% less copper than in the same period of 2025, equivalent to a decline of 175,000 tonnes. These figures confirm that the country is failing to fully capitalise on an exceptionally favourable price cycle.
This contrast matters because high prices have significantly boosted mining companies’ revenues, exports and mining-related fiscal revenues. The net balance for Chile remains positive. The gap between the effective copper price expected this year and the long-term reference price used under Chile’s fiscal rule could generate around US$4 billion in additional mining-related fiscal revenues compared with their structural level. But the relevant question is: how much more could Chile be benefiting if it were able to sustain and expand its production?
The recent decline in production reflects a combination of lower ore grades, changes in mineralogy, constraints on ore availability, maintenance requirements, permitting issues, geotechnical events and, more recently, severe weather systems. Chilean mining has entered a more demanding phase, in which large, mature deposits require more material to be processed to produce the same amount of copper, increasingly complex ores to be treated, infrastructure to be renewed, larger-scale tailings facilities to be managed, reliable water and energy supplies to be secured, and operational continuity to be maintained at mines that are becoming deeper and more technically demanding.
In this context, the main bottleneck is neither the availability of mineral resources nor the lack of potential projects, but rather the growing difficulty of converting them economically into new production. Chile’s mining investment pipeline stands at close to US$144 billion, representing almost half of all mining investment expected in Latin America. The challenge is to turn resources, projects and investment into effective, safe and sustainable production.
Chile needs to accelerate replacement and sustaining projects to maintain production, reduce uncertainty surrounding assessment and permitting timelines without lowering standards, and coordinate enabling infrastructure well in advance—particularly water, energy and logistics—while enhancing competitiveness through greater system-wide efficiency.
Chile continues to hold a privileged position in the global copper market. Its production scale and mining expertise remain assets that are difficult to replicate. But that position cannot be taken for granted. Success in the next decade of mining will not be measured by how many projects Chile can announce, but by how many additional tonnes it can actually bring into production.
Source: El Mercurio