Chile greenlights Antofagasta Minerals' US$1bn Los Pelambres optimization project

Antofagasta Minerals has received the green light from the Coquimbo region's environmental review agency to carry out a US$1bn project to make changes at its Los Pelambres mine in northern Chile to extend the lifespan of the operation beyond 2035.

The operational adaptation initiative at Minera Los Pelambres is chiefly focused on doubling the capacity of its seawater desalination plant to 800lt/s by 2025 and building a new copper concentrate transportation system as part of the INCO complementary infrastructure at the mine.

"Although Los Pelambres has environmental permits to continue extracting water from the Choapa River until at least 2035, we expect that, thanks to the investments we will make with this project, from the end of 2026 we will be able to operate mainly with desalinated and recirculated water," Antofagasta Minerals CEO Iván Arriagada said in a statement.

The adaptation will ensure that more than 90% of the water consumed in the mine's production processes will come from the sea or be recycled, the Luksic group company said.

Work on the new concentrate transportation system will begin in 2024 in order to move the circuit away from populated areas and take advantage of the INCO pipeline platform. Arriagada underlined that the project will create a large number of jobs, requiring up to 2,000 workers at its peak.

Meanwhile, Antofagasta Minerals is also working on the environmental studies for a new initiative to extend the life of operations at Los Pelambres beyond 2050. Those studies will be submitted for environmental review in the coming months, the firm stated.

The installation of the desalination plant, as part of the phase 1 expansion at Los Pelambres, improved water availability and increased the ore yield rate by 14% in the third quarter of 2023, compared with the previous quarter.

Together with the start-up of the mine's fourth concentrator line, these advances will allow Antofagasta to increase its copper production to between 670,000t and 710,000t next year. This year output is expected to reach 640,000t-670,000t.