A port serving Chile's Collahuasi mine, the world's No. 3 copper deposit, could shut down for a month after an accident that killed three workers, a port official said on Sunday, according to Reuters. Collahuasi, owned by Xstrata and Anglo American, extracts some 535,000 tonnes a year, or 3.3 percent of global mined copper. "In all likelihood the terminal will stop for quite a while ... We spoke with the people there and they said that it can take at least a month to repair the structure that collapsed," said Patache Port Captain Domingo Hormazabal. Three workers died on Saturday when part of a crane at the Patache port collapsed, a Collahuasi official told Reuters, adding that the company is trying to find out what caused the accident. Collahuasi workers returned to their jobs earlier this month following a 32-day strike that is viewed as one of the worst faced by any foreign miner in Chile, the world's top copper producer.
