Century-Old Copper Mines Spur Effort to Preserve Codelco
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Chilean President Michelle Bachelet rolled to victory last year on pledges to ramp up spending on education. Now she’s in a race against time to revive the government’s biggest source of revenue, copper producer Codelco.
With executives of the state-owned company warning that output could drop by almost half in six years, Bachelet has given clearance for Codelco to spend $23.5 billion to revamp century-old mines that are running out of profitable ore, and has pledged to sell $4 billion of bonds for additional funding.