Production by the world's top 10 copper miners will fall 0.2 percent to 11.76 million tons in 2020, according to GlobalData, a U.K. -based analytics firm.
While the initial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global mining industry was significant, six of the world's top 10 copper producers still managed to increase production that year.
The biggest increase in copper production was led by Canada's First Quantum, which reported 10.4 per cent growth in 2020 despite the challenges.
The company's Sentinel mine in Zambia and Cobre mine in Panama were major contributors to this growth.
Although the latter was still under maintenance and maintenance between April and August, it reached record production levels in the following months.
Meanwhile, despite reporting more than 3,400 confirmed cases in 2020, Chile's national copper company increased its production during the year by 1.2 percent. As part of its response to the outbreak, the company implemented a four-stage plan to ensure its health and safety.
Although the overall impact was small, Glencore fell 8.2 per cent, Antofagasta fell 4.7 per cent, BHP Billiton fell 3.9 per cent and Freeport McMoRan fell 1.3 per cent.
Reduced operating staff due to COVID-19, reduced ore grades, and production stoppages due to maintenance were major interruptions to production during the year.
Freeport McMoRan is expected to see strong growth in 2021, providing guidance levels of 1,723,600 tonnes of copper by 2021, an 18.5% increase from 2020 production, thanks to the recent opening of its expanded Grasberg mine in Indonesia.
In addition, First Quantum is expected to grow about 9.1%, and copper cathode production from Jiangxi is expected to grow 5.3%.
Production from other operating mines, such as Escondida, Collahuasi, El Teniente, Cerro Verde, Buenavista and Antamina, will also increase.
GlobalData estimates that copper production from the top 10 companies is expected to rebound by as much as 3.8 per cent to 12.2m tonnes by 2021.
