Anglo American preparing closure of Los Bronces plant to contain costs

Anglo American is advancing with plans to close a plant at its Los Bronces operation 65km from Santiago to cut costs, even though overall 1Q24 copper production in Chile increased 6% year-on-year to 126,100t. 

The smallest Los Bronces processing plant, with capacity of 60,000t/d and accounting for 40% of total capacity, is expected to shut down mid-year, helping Anglo bolster its cash flow, reduce unitary costs by around 15%, decrease dependence on water supplied by tanker trucks and achieve capex savings of around US$1bn over five years, according to a corporate presentation.

Los Bronces is being affected by a drop in ore grades and harder rocks, a situation that will persist until 2027, the company said.

While Anglo's attributable production from Collahuasi in Tarapacá region increased 13% to 64,700t in 1Q24 and that from El Soldado in Valparaíso region rose 44% to 12,700t, Los Bronces' output fell 8% to 48,700t, according to the latest quarterly report.

Anglo American plc owns 44% of Collahuasi, Glencore 44% and Japan Collahuasi Resources 12%. The structure for both El Soldado and Los Bronces is Anglo American 50.1%, Codelco-Mitsui JV Inversiones Mineras Becrux 29.5% and Mitsubishi 20.4%.

Anglo is implementing the Donoso 2 project at Los Bronces to access better-quality ore and increase productivity from 2027. Meanwhile, national copper production will decline over the next three years, in line with the progressive decrease of grades at old deposits like Los Bronces.

For this year, the overall production guidance in Chile is 430,000t-460,000t, after having achieved output of 505,000t in 2023.

Water availability remains a challenge, which Anglo aims to tackle with desalination projects.