Cerro Dominador plans 10,000t/y cathode operation

Chilean miner Cerro Dominador submitted an environmental impact statement to regulators for permission to develop a US$12mn project to produce 10,000t/y copper cathodes. The plan involves moving the company's disused Santa Margarita cathode plant in the Sierra Gorda district to a property known as Santiago, close to the Chuquicamata mine of state copper corporation Codelco in northern Chile's Region II. Under an agreement with Codelco, the plant will then process deposited material from Chuquicamata, Cerro Dominador told regulator Conama. The plant, which uses SX-EW technology, currently has capacity of 5,700t/y cathodes, and will be expanded. Failing this, a new plant will be built on the Santiago property, Cerro Dominador said. The company will also seek agreements with small-scale producers in the region to process their oxide ores, the documents submitted to Conama said. The Codelco agreement involves processing 3Mt of reserves grading 0.92% copper and stockpiled in four ponds at the company's Norte division, which includes Chuquicamata. Codelco regards the operation as too small to carry it out itself, Cerro Dominador said. The reserves from small-scale miners amount to some 10Mt at 1.5% copper, the documents say. The project could also involve extracting by-products that Codelco finds "unattractive" to handle, including 600,000t to 800,000t/y of slag, some concentrates, smelter dust and other minerals. The idea is to develop the project - estimated to have a life of 15 years - in two stages, starting with production of 6,800t/y cathodes and building up to 10,000t. The agreement with Codelco is the latest in a series reached recently under which Cerro Dominador, controlled by the Callejas family, is attempting to make best use of its processing facilities as its own reserves have dried up.