Mining in Chile

The mining sector in Chile has historically been and continues to be one of the pillars of the Chilean economy.^[1] Mining in Chile is concentrated in 14 mining districs, all of them in the northern half of the country and in particular in the Norte Grande region spanning most of the Atacama Desert.^[2]

Chile was, in 2024, the world's largest producer of copper,^[3][4] iodine^[5] and rhenium,^[6] the second largest producer of lithium,^[7] the third largest producer of molybdenum,^[4] the seventh largest producer of silver,^[4] and salt,^[8] the eighth largest producer of potash,^[9] the thirteenth producer of sulfur^[10] and the fourteenth producer of iron ore^[11] in the world. In the production of gold, between 2006 and 2017, the country produced annual quantities ranging from 35.9 tons in 2017 to 51.3 tons in 2013.^[12]

In 2021 mining taxes stood for 19% of the Chilean state's incomes.^[13] Mining stood for about 14% of gross domestic product (GDP) but by estimates including economic activity linked to mining it stood for 20% of GDP.^[13] About 3% of Chile's workforce work in mines and quarries but in a wider sense about 10% of the country's employment is linked to mining.^[13]

Historically, coal mining had some importance in the southern half of country from the 1850s to the 1990s^[14][15] with a brief revival in Invierno mine from 2013 to 2020.^[16][17] In the 19th century Chile was a major producer of silver (1830s to 1850s)^{[citation needed]} and copper (1850s to 1870s).^[18][19] From 1870 to the 1930 nitrate mining was an important employment and income source for Chile.^[20][21][22] Modern copper mining in Chile begun in the 1900s and 1910s with the arrival of companies from the United States which were fully nationalized in 1971 under the state-owned copper company Codelco.^[23][24][25]

The governance of mining in Chile is done by non-overlapping bodies; COCHILCO, ENAMI, the National Geology and Mining Service (SERNAGEOMIN) and the Ministry of Mining.^[26] SONAMI and Consejo Minero are guilds associations grouping corporate mining interests in Chile.^[27]