Chile Demands Answers on False Copper Output

Chile’s government has asked its state copper giant, Codelco, to call an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting over a second case of false copper output. The Finance and Mining ministries sent the formal letter, the Santiago daily La Tercera reported on Tuesday, 13 October.

Codelco says the same copper may have been booked twice, by its Ministro Hales and Salvador divisions, in 2024 and 2025. For US investors and copper buyers, the case raises new doubts about figures from a company that helps set world copper supply.

Codelco has no private shareholders, because the Chilean state owns all of it. Under Codelco’s founding law, the president holds the powers that Chile’s corporations law gives to shareholders.

The president can hand those powers jointly to the Finance and Mining ministers, as happened for Codelco’s annual meeting in April. Finance Minister Jorge Quiroz and Daniel Mas, who runs both the Economy and Mining ministries, attended and clashed with then-chairman Máximo Pacheco.

The new letter asks for an extraordinary meeting so the owners can be briefed on the false copper output case. According to La Tercera, the tentative date is the first week of November, and the board may set it on Wednesday afternoon.

In May, Codelco admitted booking 27,000 tonnes of copper in 2025 that had not been produced, at its Chuquicamata and Ministro Hales divisions. The correction forced Codelco to lower its 2025 output figure and put production bonuses worth an estimated US$14.3 million under scrutiny.

Those bonuses had gone to about 6,300 workers and executives at the two divisions and at head office. Prosecutors opened a criminal case and said they ruled out no possible offence, from forgery of public documents to fraud against the state.

On Tuesday, 6 October, Codelco reported a second case of false copper output, in which the same material may have been booked as output twice. The suspected double counting involves Ministro Hales and Salvador in 2024 and 2025, and Codelco calls the findings preliminary.

Codelco’s board took the new findings to the Public Ministry, Chile’s independent prosecution service. Aquiles Cubillos, the regional prosecutor in charge of the case since May, confirmed receiving the new complaint and called the facts serious.

He said some people named in the complaint will be summoned to testify, followed by further steps in the investigation. No one has been charged in either case, and Codelco has not named anyone in the new one.

Both cases cover years when Máximo Pacheco, appointed under former leftist president Gabriel Boric, chaired the board. Pacheco left in May, and Bernardo Fontaine, chosen by conservative President José Antonio Kast, now chairs Codelco.

Fontaine told a congressional inquiry on 7 October that the first hypothesis behind the false copper output is an obsession with high production. “It is the obsession with being the world’s top copper producer,” he said, according to La Tercera.

“We are making a gigantic effort to put the accounts in order,” Mas said on the weekend of 10 and 11 October. “It cannot be that Codelco’s accounts are not in order,” he added.

Fontaine has promised to pursue the case without protecting people, areas or decisions. If financial damage is confirmed, he said, Codelco will seek to recover it.

Codelco borrows on international bond markets, so trust in its reported numbers matters to investors far beyond Chile. If more false copper output is confirmed, Codelco would have to cut its reported production for 2024 or 2025.

For copper buyers, the case concerns past bookkeeping and takes no metal off the market today. It comes as a labour dispute at Escondida and a deadly avalanche at Codelco’s El Teniente mine already weigh on Chilean supply.

Codelco has given no official tonnage or cost for the new false copper output case. Its board is expected to receive more detail at the special session on Wednesday, 14 October.

Auditors from EY are examining the suspected double counting, while KPMG reviews all divisions’ output for 2024 and 2025. If the findings change the 2025 total, Codelco will have to restate how much copper it produced in 2025.

On Sunday, 11 October, Mas told TVN television that the government would decide that week whether to join the criminal case. A Chamber of Deputies inquiry into Codelco’s production figures expects to vote on its report on 23 October.

Codelco is Chile’s state-owned copper company, with mines across the north and centre of the country. The Chilean state owns all of it, as our Codelco explainer sets out.

In May, Codelco admitted booking 27,000 tonnes of copper in 2025 that had not been produced. In October it found a second suspected case of false copper output, in which two divisions may have counted the same material twice.

Chile’s president exercises the shareholder powers over Codelco and can delegate them jointly to the Finance and Mining ministers. The meeting lets the owner question management formally, as it did at a tense annual meeting in April.

The tentative date is the first week of November. Codelco’s board may set the exact date at its special session on Wednesday, 14 October.

The case concerns past bookkeeping, so it takes no copper off the market. It does add to doubts about Chilean supply at a time when a labour dispute and a deadly accident already weigh on output.

Sources: Codelco (press release on new overproduction findings) , 6 October 2026; La Tercera (ministries’ letter, shareholders’ meeting, Codelco law article 11 A) , 13 October 2026; BioBioChile (Daniel Mas, criminal case decision, Chamber inquiry) , 12 October 2026; Emol (O’Higgins regional prosecutor) , 6 October 2026; Emol (Bernardo Fontaine before the Chamber inquiry) , 7 October 2026; 24horas/TVN (Daniel Mas on Estado Nacional) , 11 October 2026; Diario Financiero (criminal case, possible offences, bonuses) , 27 May 2026; Ex-Ante (May case, bonuses) , 6 October 2026.

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