Canadian diversified miner Teck Resources on Wednesday announced that it had suspended construction activities at the $4.8-billion Quebrada Blanca Phase 2 (QB2) project to support Chile’s efforts to limit the transmission of Covid-19.

The suspension would be for an initial two weeks, at which point Teck would reassess the status of the project. About 15 000 people work on the QB2 project, which would produce 316 000 t/y of copper-equivalent in its first five years of operation.

The suspension of QB2 comes a day after Anglo American withdrew its 10 000-strong workforce at the 300 000 t/y Quellaveco copper project, in neighbouring Peru, to comply with a government-imposed 15-day quarantine period in that country.

Rio Tinto has also announced a slowdown in the construction of the Oyu Tolgoi copper/gold project, in Mongolia.

“Considering the significant size and scale of the QB2 project, and the fact that workers on the project commute in large numbers from all over Chile, this is the right decision to protect the health and safety of workers and their families, and to support the Chilean government efforts to halt the spread of Covid-19,” Teck president and CEO Don Lindsay said.

“In the days ahead, we will be putting a plan in place to be ready to restart construction as soon as possible, subject to further developments in the response to Covid-19.”

Prior to the global outbreak of Covid-19, Teck already warned that there could be delays in the schedule of QB2, owing to permitting and social unrest. The company would address the project in its analyst webcast on April 1, it said.

The suspension of construction activities is effective immediately, and the workforce will demobilise over the coming days.

Teck stressed that there had been no confirmed cases of Covid-19 associated with QB2 employees or contractors to date.

The QB2 project is one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper resources. Teck holds an indirect 60% interest in Compañía Minera Teck Quebrada Blanca, which owns QB2.