SANTIAGO, July 14 (Reuters) - Operations at Andina, a Chilean copper mine run by state-owned Codelco, were slowly returning to normal on Saturday after a week-long stoppage caused by a worker's strike and bad weather, a company spokesman said.

"We're starting up operations again, which is going to take a couple of days," Codelco spokesman Antonio Varas told Reuters. "We have people up at the mine who are starting up the machines."

"However, the access road to the plant is still closed due to the snow, so it's probably going to take us the whole weekend to get back to normal."

Codelco halted all activities at Andina on Monday after a worker was seriously injured in disturbances linked to a strike by subcontracted staff who are demanding better pay and conditions from the company, the world's biggest copper miner.

It said it would only restart operations when the safety of its workers could be guaranteed.

On Friday the labor dispute was compounded by heavy snow that blocked the access road to the plant, some 13,000 feet (4,000 metres) up in the central Chilean Andes.

Normally, bad weather would not present a problem because the plant has sleeping accommodations and catering for workers, allowing it to operate in isolation for up to a month.

But there were far fewer workers than normal at Andina this week due to the strike, meaning Codelco was unable to restart operations.

Varas said Codelco hoped to start shifts again on Sunday but, even then, Andina would not be fully operational.

The subcontracted workers have yet to reach a deal with management to end their stoppage.

Andina, Codelco's third largest division, produced 248,000 tonnes of refined copper in 2006, which accounted for 14 percent of the company's total.

Codelco provides the world with around 10 percent of its copper.

It said on Wednesday it had lost 700 tonnes of copper output per day since Monday, and that the strike had cost Andina $25 million in lost sales since the subcontractors' work stoppage began on June 25.

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