Codelco He fired an executive and disciplined several others After an internal review found that the world’s largest copper extractor overstated part of its 2025 production by classifying material requiring further processing as finished product.
Chile’s state-owned mining company said seven current executives and a former executive were responsible for the improper reporting, and that it had referred the matter to prosecutors to determine whether criminal conduct had occurred.
The review followed a March complaint about… Reported 20 thousand tons from its Chuquicamata division and 6,875 tons of Ministro Hales. The material, which is equivalent to about 2% of Codelco’s 2025 production, should have been recorded as in-process inventory rather than finished production, the company said.
Codelco said the investigation identified improper use of exclusion rules, failures in mandatory approvals and distortions in the calculation of corporate targets and incentive payments. The company said the results will not require changes to its audited 2025 financial statements, although it will review production disclosures and recalculate bonuses tied to those metrics.
Trust questioned
“This is a serious problem because it exposes weaknesses in control, traceability and validation of processes,” said Juan Carlos Guajardo, CEO of consultancy Plusmining. MINING.COM said.
Guajardo said the controversy is important because the additional tons helped Codelco meet its December production target, marking the company’s strongest monthly production this decade and far exceeding the January-November average of 105,600 tons.
“For a state-owned company as important as Codelco, trust in operational information is as important as financial information,” he said.
Chilean Minister of Economy and Mining Daniel Mas strongly criticized the company’s management. “Codelco is out of control,” Maas said. In a post on XHe added that the government of President José Antonio Caste has a duty to restore transparency and accountability.
Leadership shift
The fallout from the audit comes days before economist Bernardo Fontaine, a long-time critic of Codelco’s governance and efficiency, takes over as chairman.
It also follows reports of an ambitious plan to merge the Chuquicamata, Radomiro Tomic and Ministro Hills mines in northern Chile. The proposal aims to generate a Combined $2 billion in savings and additional revenues as part of a broader four-year production strategy that Codelco plans to present to the government in the coming months.
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