Codelco, one of the world’s biggest copper producers, is pursing ways to remove more people from its giant mines in Chile after a deadly collapse underscored the dangers of digging deep underground.

The State-owned company has been discussing with technology and equipment providers, as well as unions, ways to accelerate automation at the El Teniente mine after a July 31 rock blast killed six people and upended operating plans, Codelco chairman Maximo Pacheco said in an interview Sunday.

Chile’s deadliest mining accident in decades has coincided with major disruptions at sprawling underground operations in Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), squeezing global supplies just as the energy transition and data centers boost demand for the wiring metal.

The string of underground mishaps, combined with setbacks at several large open pits, has prompted hand-wringing over the industry’s ability to exploit deposits that are getting deeper and more challenging technically.

While many mines – including El Teniente – already perform key functions from remote centers, generally the industry has been slow to innovate given the huge upfront costs and pressure to churn out metal and profit. El Teniente, for example, still sends thousands of workers down a labyrinth of tunnels.

Stepping up automation could help Codelco control costs, which have been rising as deteriorating ore quality means miners have to dig up more rock to produce the same amount of metal. While autonomous haul trucks and process automation can generate big savings in open pits, such gains can be more modest and trickier to achieve at underground operations.

“We plan to deepen and accelerate that process,” Pacheco said. “We’re already working on it — the goal is to remove people from the front line and replace that work with remote-controlled and automated systems.”

Workers are largely on board with more jobs going remote given it has become harder to prevent and predict the sudden release of accumulated energy known as rock blasts, El Teniente union leader Jorge Bustamante said.

“Over time, the mine has gone deeper, the rock has changed and risks have increased,” Bustamante said in an interview. “You can have all the best measures and protocols and there’ll always be a risk when you enter nature.”

Pacheco said management is “completely aligned” with unions on stepping up automation and is holding regular meetings, including one a couple of weeks ago.

Still, removing more people from operating mines is one thing. Getting autonomous and remotely operated machinery to build mines is harder. The El Teniente collapse occurred in a new section of the mine where development work was taking place alongside extraction activities.

Pacheco said it’s possible, pointing to a new arrangement Codelco has at another mine with Enaex SA involving automated blasting.

The recent spate of mine disruptions underpins the need to accelerate technological development, even if that means greater spending and lower production near term, said Juan Carlos Guajardo, founder of mining consultancy Plusmining.

“There’s a clear lag in how quickly technologies are advancing,” Guajardo said. “Everything related to artificial intelligence, the development of broader leaching techniques, and automation will have to move faster.”

Robert Friedland, the billionaire founder of Ivanhoe Mines, agrees companies have to innovate as deposits get harder and more expensive to mine to keep up with demand. Ivanhoe’s mine in the DRC suffered seismic activity earlier this year, interrupting underground operations.

“We’ve got a lot of disruption this year because the industry’s struggling to provide the same amount of copper it did last year,” Friedland said in an interview. “As these mines age and get deeper, the challenges increase and so technology has to improve.”