![Copper mines in Chile - 3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Copper_mines_in_Chile_-_3.PNG)
Escondida is a copper mine at elevation in the
Atacama Desert
The Atacama Desert ( es, Desierto de Atacama) is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1,600 km (990 mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes Mountains. The Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in the ...
in
Antofagasta Region
The Antofagasta Region ( es, Región de Antofagasta, ) is one of Chile's sixteen first-order administrative divisions. The second-largest region of Chile in area, it comprises three provinces, Antofagasta, El Loa and Tocopilla. It is bordered t ...
,
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
.
Geology
The Escondida deposit is one of a cluster of
porphyry coppers in an elongated area about 18 km north–south and 3 km east–west and is associated with the 600 km long West Fissure (''Falla Oeste'') system, which is in turn associated with most of the major Chilean porphyry deposits. A barren, leached cap, in places up to 300 metres thick, overlies a thick zone of high grade secondary
supergene mineralisation of the main orebody, largely
chalcocite
Chalcocite (), copper(I) sulfide (Cu2S), is an important copper ore mineral. It is opaque and dark gray to black, with a metallic luster. It has a hardness of 2.5–3 on the Mohs scale. It is a sulfide with a monoclinic crystal system.
The ...
and
covellite
Covellite (also known as covelline) is a rare copper sulfide mineral with the formula CuS. This indigo blue mineral is commonly a secondary mineral in limited abundance and although it is not an important ore of copper itself, it is well known t ...
, which in turn overlies the unaltered primary mineralisation of
chalcopyrite
Chalcopyrite ( ) is a copper iron sulfide mineral and the most abundant copper ore mineral. It has the chemical formula CuFeS2 and crystallizes in the tetragonal system. It has a brassy to golden yellow color and a hardness of 3.5 to 4 on the Mo ...
,
bornite
Bornite, also known as peacock ore, is a sulfide mineral with chemical composition Cu5 Fe S4 that crystallizes in the orthorhombic system (pseudo-cubic).
Appearance
Bornite has a brown to copper-red color on fresh surfaces that tarnishes to v ...
and
pyrite
The mineral pyrite (), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Iron, FeSulfur, S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral.
Pyrite's metallic Luster (mineralogy), lust ...
.
Reserves
At mid 2007, Escondida had total proven and probable
reserves of 34.7 million tonnes of copper, of which 22.5 million tonnes is estimated to be recoverable. Total
resources
Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their a ...
(including reserves) were 57.6 million tonnes of copper, of which 33.0 million tonnes should be recovered. Exploration continues. As of 2019, the known resource is 21.7 Billion tonnes at 0.54 percent Copper including Escondida and adjacent deposits. The mine and ancillary industries contributes 2.5% to Chile’s GDP.
Operation
Sulfide ore, which contributes 77% of the recoverable copper reserve, is crushed and milled in one of the two concentrators and the copper concentrate is separated out using
froth flotation
Froth flotation is a process for selectively separating hydrophobic materials from hydrophilic. This is used in mineral processing, paper recycling and waste-water treatment industries. Historically this was first used in the mining industry, wher ...
. Approximately 86% of the copper is recovered. It is piped down to the port of Coloso, where it is dewatered before shipping. Oxide ore, 4% of recoverable copper, is crushed, agglomerated and then acid leached in large heaps, and the copper is recovered from the leach solutions as copper cathode in a
solvent extraction/electrowinning (SX/EW) plant. Recovery is 68%. The low grade sulfide ore contributes 19% of recoverable copper. It is also crushed and dumped on large heaps, but here the leaching occurs through oxidation induced by
microorganisms
A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in olde ...
. The copper is also recovered by SX/EW.
In 2006, 338.6 million tonnes were mined (928,000 tonnes per day), of which 251.5 million tonnes were waste and oxide ore. Sulphide ore totalled 87.1 million tonnes or 239,000 tonnes per day. The two camps, San Lorenzo and 2000, cater to 7,000 people daily. Esconidida's current capacity is around 1.4 million tonnes of copper production per year, making it the largest copper mine in the world.
In 2005,
Degrémont Industry was asked to install a new
Sea Water Reverse Osmosis plant with capacity to produce 12 Million gallons of fresh water per day.
Construction of work force accommodation camps and field offices are needed services in order to have the mine operating, on this note Tecno Fast in 2012 was hired to build the second phase of the respective workforce accommodation camp for Escondida Mine.
BHP buys 3
TWh TWH or twh could refer to:
* Tai Dón language, a language of Vietnam, Laos, and China
* Tai Wo Hau station, Hong Kong; MTR station code
* Tennessee Walking Horse, a breed of horse
* Toronto Western Hospital, a hospital in Toronto, Canada
* Tun ...
of electricity per year to operate the Escondida and Spence mines
(1.640 m elevation), where solar energy is more than 3.000 kWh/m
2 per year.
[
]
See also
*Chuquicamata
Chuquicamata ( ; referred to as Chuqui for short) is the largest open pit copper mine in terms of excavated volume in the world. It is located in the north of Chile, just outside Calama, at above sea level. It is northeast of Antofagasta and n ...
*El Teniente
El Teniente ("The Lieutenant") is an underground copper mine located in the Chilean Andes, above mean sea level. It is in the commune of Machalí in Cachapoal Province, Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins Region, near the company town of ...
*El Salvador mine
El Salvador mine (The Savior) is a combined open-pit mining, open pit and underground mining (hard rock), underground copper mining, mine located in Chile and owned by the Government-owned corporation, state owned copper mining company Codelco. Th ...
*Los Pelambres mine
Los Pelambres mine is a copper mine located in the north-central of Chile in Coquimbo Region. It is one of the largest copper reserves in the world, having estimated reserves of 4.9 billion tonnes of ore grading 0.65% copper.
The deposit was first ...
*Potrerillos, Chile
Potrerillos is a ghost town in the interior of Atacama Region, Chile. Potrerillos became established as mining camp in the 1920s by Andes Copper Mining Company.
There is an airport in the area, the Potrerillos Airport.
Potrerillos Mine
One of ...
* Chanarcillo
*El Salvador mine
El Salvador mine (The Savior) is a combined open-pit mining, open pit and underground mining (hard rock), underground copper mining, mine located in Chile and owned by the Government-owned corporation, state owned copper mining company Codelco. Th ...
References
{{reflist
External links
Great Deposits of the World – La Escondida Porphyry Copper, Chile
updated October 17, 2019
Atacama Desert
Copper mines in Chile
Mines in Antofagasta Region
Open-pit mines
Surface mines in Chile