Chile is making local headlines this morning with the news that its total copper exports in dollar terms for May 2012 came in at $3.302Bn, (basically 90% of the $3.685Bn in mining exports, just to give you an idea of the importance of copper in the Chile metals mix). This copper export number has caught headlines because it’s 16.1% down on the same month of 2011 (May ’11 $3.973Bn). Here’s a chart that shows all the monthly export totals since January 2007, because round here we really like context
The problem with Chile’s copper sector is that it hasn’t improvement much on its production tonnages in all this time and the country’s been running on the price boost that the metal has enjoyed. But don’t fret, it’s only pissant lil blogs like this one that will point that out to you, the rest of the pathetic English language LatAm bizmedia coverage will continue to soothe your ears with talk on how oh-so-clever they are in Chile compared to the rest of the continent.