Chile's mining companies have room to cut costs further

Chile's copper mining companies have more room to cut costs even as a steep dive in global metals prices has already driven them to tighten their belts significantly, State copper commission Cochilco said on Monday. Producers in the top copper-exporting nation managed to reduce cash costs to $1.27/lb of copper during the first half of 2016, from $1.51 in the same period last year, according to a Cochilco study that looks at nearly 90% of the country's copper output.