Bolstering small mines, tailings management among key challenges for Chile

Important long-term challenges Chile’s mining industry must face include bolstering small mines, achieve cost reductions through synergies, and value creation from tailings.

At a webinar on Tuesday, organized by Minnovex, an association of companies for innovation and exports, national mining company Enami's CEO Robert Mayne-Nicholls, proposed linking small mines to big processing facilities. Such integration would help face declining ore grade’s in northern Chile’s older mines while boosting smaller facilities.

As copper oxide deposits are declining, Mayne-Nicholls also urged the development of technologies to facilitate copper sulfide recovery from the ore extracted and increase the country’s processing capacity.

According to data from copper commission Cochilco, the amount of available copper oxides will drop to 12% by 2027, from 30.8% in 2015. This will make hydrometallurgical facilities obsolete. 

“If the oxides run out and we can’t process sulfides, a lot of value will be lost. To do more with less is the biggest challenge,” he said. 

Management of tailings, which can contain up to 0.8% of copper, is another challenge. 

Industry watchdog Sernageomin also found that tailings dams belonging to Enami and medium-scale mining companies in Atacama and Coquimbo regions contain rare earths.

The mining ministry, state copper miner Codelco’s subsidiary Ecometales, Chilean company JRI, and Sernageomin are already designing a handbook to define key aspects of rare earth extraction from tailings.

Photo credit: Enami