Chile's copper industry produced record production and lost money in 2015

Nelson Pizarro, CEO of Chile's National Copper Company, the world's largest copper miner, said March 24 that although the company's copper production in 2015 reached a record high, the state-owned company also suffered record losses due to the continued low international copper prices
.

Chile's national copper company produced 1.
73 million tons of refined copper in 2015, an increase of 3.
6% over the previous year; The company's loss climbed to $1.
357 billion, compared with a profit of $3.
033 billion
in 2014.

Pizarro said that 2016 will be a difficult year, copper prices are expected to continue to decline, and the key to meeting the challenge is to keep production costs below
copper prices.

In response to the 2015 decline in copper prices on the international market by more than 20 percent, Chile's national copper company cut 15.
6 percent of its executives and suspended new hires
last year.