Insight: Inside a copper output plunge at No. 1 global producer Codelco

From Mining.com

Beneath the world’s largest open-pit copper mine in Chile lies a tunnel complex filled with dust so dense that machines frequently break down and workers can’t operate without spacesuit-like helmets.

Conveyer belts often stall and have caused at least one fire. Construction mistakes have led to collapses and two large electromagnets designed to clear damaging objects haven’t been functional in four years.

This, according to over a dozen workers interviewed by Reuters, is the situation at Chuquicamata Subterranea (PMCHS), a $5 billion dollar flagship project of Chile’s state copper miner Coldelco that was meant to transform the open-pit mine into an underground operation.