Chile’s power grid and key copper mines were gradually restored Wednesday after a massive outage left much of the country in the dark, disrupting operations in the world’s top copper-producing nation.
The blackout, triggered by a transmission line failure in northern Chile on Tuesday afternoon, cut power to millions, including major mining operations, and sent ripples through global copper markets. By early Wednesday, over 90% of residential electricity had been restored, though some areas continued to experience intermittent service, Chile’s National Electricity Coordinator (CEN) said.
“The scale of the incident and the failures in backup systems are deeply concerning,” Interior Minister Carolina Toha said at a press conference, adding that some power stations struggled to restart after the failure.
Authorities attributed the outage to ISA Interchile, a subsidiary of Colombia’s ISA (ISA.CN), owned by state oil firm Ecopetrol (ECO.CN). The company said it was investigating the cause but noted that software and electronic protection systems had malfunctioned, triggering a shutdown of a high-voltage transmission line and causing most of the grid to collapse.
“Interchile’s team is working in close coordination with the authorities to determine the root cause and prevent future disruptions,” said Luis Llano, the company’s general manager.
A state of emergency and curfew imposed Tuesday night were lifted Wednesday morning as service improved. Toha said about 220,000 customers, mostly in northern Chile, remained without power, down from a peak of 8 million households affected.
Copper mining operations, which account for a significant share of Chile’s economy, were also resuming activity.
Escondida, the world’s largest copper mine, expected to return to full production within hours, a source familiar with the situation told The Associated Press. The mine is controlled by BHP (BHP.AX).
Anglo American (AAL.L) said it was restoring operations at its Los Bronces and El Soldado mines, as well as its Chagres smelter in central Chile.
State-owned Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, confirmed that all its divisions were gradually resuming production. Antofagasta (ANTO.L) also reported that its operations had restarted.
“All our divisions were affected by the outage, and contingency plans were activated immediately,” Codelco said in a statement. “We are assessing the impact on our production targets, which will be a priority in the coming days.”
Santiago’s subway service, which had been disrupted, announced it was resuming operations on most lines and stations.
