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Within the scope of a field trip, a group of Aachen University students and staff of the excavation and mining equipment group (BGMR) had the opportunity to travel Chile (Figure 1). The extensive itinerary included several mine site visits on surface and underground (copper and limestone) plus the visitation of branch offices of equipment suppliers like Sandvik Tamrock, Atlas Copco and Lanzco. In this paper the following two copper mines will be covered in detail: The open pit copper mine of Chuquicamata in the Atacama desert is one of the largest of its kind in the world in terms of mine site area. It is operated by the state owned Codelco Chile (Corporación Nacional del Cobre). Escondida, operated by an international consortium consisting of BHP Biliton, Rio Tinto and a Japanese investor, produces annually more than one million tons of copper in metal content being the biggest copper mine in the world. A significant feature of the copper porphyry complex of Chuqui camata is the deep supergeneous mineral enrichment, which could be proven to a depth of 1000 m. The ore reserves are estimated at some 13 bn t with an average copper content of 0.8 %. Mina Sur is located south of the ore body and in the north the Radomiro Tomic open pit commenced mining three years ago (Figure 2), combined the three mines form the Codelco Chile’s Division Norte. Mining operation Depending on the copper content the ore is mined selectively and treated in separate processing lines. The current cut off grade for sulphide ores, which are flotated, is set at 0.6 % copper content. Per annum 60 mill t of ore averaging 1 % copper are processed and additional 10 mill t with 0.6 % Cu are mined and stockpiled. Starting from 2015 this material will be blended with the ROM, as at that point of time the average copper content will decrease to about 0.5 %. Some 10 mill t of oxide ore (0.2 to 0.5 % Cu) are mined annually and heap leached. With annually 150 mill t, waste rock makes up most of the material being moved in the Chuquicamata copper operation. Processing and Refining.
Tags : bhp biliton, open pit copper, sandvik tamrock, atlas copco, codelco chile, copper content, copper mine, copper mines, atacama desert, international consortium, oxide ore, radomiro tomic, sulphide ores, current cut, rio tinto
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