Industria Proyecto: Mining

The Dominga project consists of an open pit mine that will produce high grade iron concentrates and, as a by-product, copper concentrate. The mine is projected to produce 12 million tons per year of pellet iron concentrate and 150,000 tons per year of copper concentrate over a 22-year life.
The iron ore will be shipped via an underground pipeline to a shipping terminal to be built in the Totoralillo Norte sector. Instead, the copper concentrates will be transported by truck.

The “Operational Tailings Management and Optimization of the Sierra Gorda Project” project is a modification of the “Sierra Gorda Project” and is intended to approve a series of improvements to the operation, especially with respect to the tailings deposit belonging to the mining operation of the same name.
The project aims to optimize the operation by modifying the geotechnical design of the pit slopes, optimizing the final configuration of the tailings disposal site, incorporating new equipment in the areas of crushing, grinding, flotation, thickening and filtering, as well as improving its processes. The execution of these modifications will allow a possible increase in the concentrator plant’s profit capacity from the authorized 190,000 tons per day to a potentially optimum total of 230,000 tpd.

At the end of 2018, Minera Collahuasi entered the Environmental Evaluation System with the project “Development of Infrastructure and Improvement of Production Capacity”, which contemplates optimizing the concentrator plant from 170,000 tpd to 210,000 tpd in the medium term, as well as reactivating the production of cathodes through the bio-leaching process and optimizing the molybdenum plant.
The initiative will extend the useful life of this plant for an additional 20 years, requiring an investment of US$3.2 billion over five years.