Santiago-headquartered Codelco, world’s largest copper producer, is tapping the bond market to borrow about $1.5 billion to fund its mine investments.
Bloomberg reports that Chile’s state-owned miner has embarked on an unprecedented spending program to overhaul its aging operations in Chile after decades of underinvestment. Its CAPEX is seen at $6 billion in 2025 as the company looks to recover from the lowest production levels in around 25 years.
Codelco is offering two benchmark-size tranches of about $750-million each maturing 10 and 30 years, respectively. Such large investors as Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Banco Santander have expressed interest in the transaction.
In 2024, Codelco’s copper production amounted to 1.328 million metric tons, slightly up from 1.325 million tons produced in 2023.
Its sales in December were up 10% from November and 13% compared with the same month a year earlier, at $4.66 billion.
Theodor Lisovoy, Managing Editor, Rough&Polished