Company officials told the Wall Street Journal that the attack occurred Wednesday at the country’s largest mine, located in the northern La Guajira province.

“Cerrejon is sorry to inform that this morning there was a firefight between the National Army and guerrillas just outside the mining complex,” officials told the news service.

“The company expresses its sincere condolences to the family of the [deceased] soldier.”

Cerrejon said that operations at the open-pit operation, a joint venture of Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Glencore Xstrata, were not impacted.

None of the victims were identified, though a company spokeswoman told WSJ the deceased soldier was a security brigade member.

It is at least the third attack against the complex in a short period of time. It follows a pair of bomb blasts on the complex’s railway organised by rebel groups.

Cerrejon officials said the latest attack appears to have been from the hands of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Following the first dynamite attacks in October, Cerrejon officials said that the company’s whole-year 2013 production targets will be reduced.

While the group has been in peace talks with the country’s government for more than a year, no cease-fire was called.

FARC also reportedly conducted "Black October”, in which it conducted more than 25 attacks on oil pipelines and electricity towers along with the Cerrejon railway.

Colombia is the fourth-largest coal exporter worldwide.

Cerrejon is its largest production contributor, and while it had eyed a 34 million metric ton target for 2013 officials recently said the rebel attacks could cut that goal by about 800,000t.