Codelco of Chile said that it produced 21,000 tonnes of molybdenum in molybdenum concentrate in the full year of 2008, down by 25% YoY as compared with that of 28,000 tonnes in the preceding year of 2007.

Also, Codelco sold 24,000 tonnes of molybdenum in concentrate in 2008, down by 14.3% YoY as compared to that of 28,000 tonnes in 2007.

Codelco produced 1,466,000 tonnes of copper in the financial year of 2008, down by 7.4% YoY as compared with that of 1,583,000 tonnes in 2007, but the quantity of molybdenum recovered from copper production in 2008 had a large decline of 25% from that in 2007.

Codelco was scheduled at the beginning of 2008 to produce 50 to 55 million pounds of molybdenum in molybdenum concentrate in the year, having already anticipated a decline of molybdenum production, but actually decreased molybdenum production in 2008 to a large extent. However, the quantity of molybdenum sold by Codelco in 2008 had a decrease of 14.3% from that in 2007 and Codelco is supposed to have covered their sales of molybdenum in 2008 by disposals of their molybdenum stocks.