Playa Verde
Chile
- Country: Chile
- Industry: Mining
- Location: Atacama
- Property: Copper Bay
- Investment: 95 million
- Term: 2024
- Bidding: Private
- Status: On February 21, 2024, the Environmental Assessment Service rejected the project. On April 5, 2024, a complaint was filed in an attempt to overturn this rejection.
Description:
The Playa Verde project aims to extract red metal from old tailings deposited on the Playa Grande beach in Chañaral. Between 1938 and 1975, the beach received tailings from the Potrerillos smelter and the Salvador mine of state-owned copper producer Codelco.
It is estimated that it could hold about 250 million tons of tailings that form a deposit of metalliferous sands 10.15m thick. In addition, according to a feasibility study, recoverable resources reach 35Mt with 0.24% copper.
The purpose is to process the tailings in a metallurgical plant to extract copper in cathodes or concentrates. The project will also clean up the beach, which has high levels of arsenic and copper. This will involve dredging, a solvent extraction area and electro-winning to produce cathodes.