A central level within the negotiations was the union’s demand for 1% of shareholder dividends from the mine, or about $35,000 per employee. The corporate had provided a bonus of $28,900 earlier than the strike.
“BHP and Union No. 1 have come to an settlement for a collective contract proposal. Together with that, it was agreed to droop the strike underway as of this Friday, Aug. 16, at 8 a.m.,” BHP stated in a press release.
The brand new deal could possibly be signed on Sunday after union management meets with members.
Escondida accounts for about 5% of the world’s mined copper, producing greater than 1 million metric tonnes of the metallic a 12 months.
Based mostly on knowledge from the state-run Chilean Copper Fee (Cochilco), Escondida accounted for 23.7% of the nation’s copper manufacturing throughout the first half of the 12 months. That is virtually the identical quantity produced by Chile’s Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, throughout the identical interval.
The mine produced 614,400 tonnes of copper within the first six months of 2024, in accordance with Cochilco. Chile’s complete manufacturing of the pink metallic throughout this era amounted to 2.6 million tonnes.
Copper for supply in September fell 1.2% from Thursday’s settlement after the information, touching $4.10 per pound ($9,020 per tonne) on Friday morning on the Comex market in New York.
“Strikes normally don’t are usually long-lasting in Chile, and so the market might have been reluctant to react to it an excessive amount of within the early phases,” Michael Widmer, head of metals analysis at Financial institution of America, advised Bloomberg.
“The larger situation proper now’s how we’re doing on the demand aspect, and that’s most likely why the market hasn’t centered on it a lot.”
The final important strike at Escondida occurred in 2017, lasting 44 days. The stoppage harm manufacturing, drove international copper costs up, and have become the longest private-sector mining strike in Chile’s historical past. It’s estimated that Escondida failed to supply greater than 120,000 tonnes of the pink metallic resulting from that strike.