Fundición Altonorte
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Fundición Altonorte or Complejo Metalúrgico Altonorte is a copper smelter plant in La Negra, 25 km southeast of the city of
Antofagasta Antofagasta () is a port city in northern Chile, about north of Santiago. It is the capital of Antofagasta Province and Antofagasta Region. According to the 2015 census, the city has a population of 402,669. Once claimed by Bolivia follo ...
in northern Chile. Owned by
Glencore Glencore plc is an Anglo-Swiss Multinational corporation, multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas headquarters are in London, London, England as well a ...
, it is classified as a "custom smelter" as it does not depend on
ore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically including metals, concentrated above background levels, and that is economically viable to mine and process. The grade of ore refers to the concentration ...
concentrate from a particular mine nor does it lie next to one. In 2015 it had a capacity to produce 350,000
metric tons The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the sh ...
of copper yearly making it the third largest of Chile's seven copper smelters. This capacity made Fundición Altonorte one of the world's 20 largest copper smelters. Besides copper Fundición Altonorte also produces
sulphuric acid Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid ( Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen, and hydrogen, with the molecular formu ...
. By 2023 it operated with 750 employees and 323 employees from contractors. Its
CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...
is Juan Carrasco Palma. The smelter was established in 1993 and was by then known as Refimet. In 1998 its property was fully acquired by Noranda and it changed name to Fundición Altonorte, and in 2006
Glencore Glencore plc is an Anglo-Swiss Multinational corporation, multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas headquarters are in London, London, England as well a ...
gained total ownership of it. Reportedly, the initial investment in the smelter came as result of the Decreto Ley 600 law of 1974 which sought incentivize foreign invesment in Chile.


See also

*
Alexander Sutulov Alexander Sutulov Popov (1925, Yugoslavia/Croatia – 1991) was a Yugoslavia-born Russian and Chilean chemical engineer specialized in electrometallurgy and extractive metallurgy and active in El Teniente copper mine and various research institution ...
– Chilean-Russian extractive metallurgist *
Alumysa Alumysa was a proposed Aluminium smelting, aluminium smelter to be built in Puerto Chacabuco in Aysén Fjord, Chile. The project began to be planned in the early 1990s, it presented its environmental impact assessment in 2001 and was suspended in Au ...
– aluminium smelting project in Chile by Noranda, shelved in 2003 *
Copper mining in Chile Chile is the world's largest producer of copper and has been so uninterruptedly since 1983. This activity provides a substantial part of the Chilean state's revenue: slightly less than 6% in 2020, with state-owned copper company Codelco alone gen ...
*
Guixi Smelter The Guixi Smelter is a copper smelter in Jiangxi province in inland southeastern China owned by Jiangxi Copper. It is the world's largest copper smelter, and China is as of 2024 the world's largest refined copper producer and consumer. In 2015 it ...
– largest copper smelter in the world


References

{{coord missing, Chile Buildings and structures in Antofagasta Region Chimneys in Chile Altonorte Glencore Infrastructure completed in 1993