Chile’s copper output fell 13.8% year-on-year in April, with the world’s largest copper producer turning out just 399,954 metric tons against 464,056 a year earlier. The drop erased more than 64,000 metric tons of supply from a single month.
Statistics agency INE pinned the decline on “a high base of comparison and low ore grades at major companies in the sector.” That framing matters. Low ore grades are not an operational blip, they reflect the gradual exhaustion of existing deposits, a problem that does not resolve in a quarter.
The copper slide pulled the rest of Chile’s mining complex down with it. The overall mining production index fell 9.0% year-on-year in April. Metallic mining contracted 12.6% over the same period.
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Broader industrial output was no better. Chile’s total industrial production fell 4.7% year-on-year in April, steeper than the 3.4% contraction posted the month before. On a monthly basis, output slipped a further 0.2%.
Manufacturing added to the picture of weakness. Sector production dropped 2.5% year-on-year, with metal products registering the sharpest sub-sector loss at 15.4%. Food output fell 7.7%.
Utilities offered the only positive reading in April. Output there rose 0.9% year-on-year, lifted by a 2.3% gain in electricity generation. Against the breadth of declines across mining and manufacturing, it was a thin margin of comfort.
Ore grade deterioration at Chile’s major copper producers has been building for years. April’s figures put a hard number on how fast that pressure is now translating into lost output.
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