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Surface mining
Published in A.J.S. (Sam) Spearing, Liqiang Ma, Cong-An Ma, Mine Design, Planning and Sustainable Exploitation in the Digital Age, 2023
A.J.S. (Sam) Spearing, Liqiang Ma, Cong-An Ma
According to Mining Technology (February 2020), the five deepest openpit mines in the world are: Bingham Canyon, Utah, US, operated by Rio Tinto, has a pit width of over 4,000m and a current depth of 1,200m.Chuquicamata copper mine, operated by Codelco in Chile, has a pit length of 4,300m, a width of 3,000m and a current depth of 850m.Escondida copper mine in the Atacama Desert of Chile, operated by BHP, has a pit length of 3,900m, a width of 2,700m and a current depth of 645m.Udachny diamond mine located in Siberian, Russia, has a current depth of 630m.Muruntau gold mine in Uzbekistan has just reached a depth of 600m.
Resources and Processing
Published in C. K. Gupta, Extractive Metallurgy of Molybdenum, 2017
As mentioned earlier, Chile is the world’s third largest molybdenum producer after the U.S. and Canada. Almost all of the Chilean molybdenum production comes as a by-product recovery from porphyry copper mines. These mines, Chuquicamata, El Teninete, El Salvador, and Andina Mines, are owned and operated by the state-owned Corporation Nacional del Cobre (CODELCO-Chile). The Chuquicamata and El Teninete deposits are among the largest copper porphyries in the world and they constitute the sources of most of Chile’s molybdenum. Extraction of molybdenite is conditioned by the recovery of copper, which makes the economics of these deposits dependent primarily on copper and not so much on molybdenum.
Classification and regression models in Copper refinery
Published in Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy, 2022
In this context, the national copper corporation (CODELCO) has had to adapt to changes in the copper concentration of its mineral reserves. Chuquicamata, one of most important mineral reserve of CODELCO, for increase its competitiveness against global demand, has decided since 2013, to melt and refine copper concentrate at ‘Ministro Hales’ Division, the newest mineral reserve of CODELCO. Although both divisions are geographically side by side, the chemical composition of the copper concentrate is very different between one division and another. Copper concentrate from the ‘Ministro Hales’ Division is high in impurities such as arsenic, antimony and bismuth. One of the areas most affected by the processing of this new copper concentrate was the Electrochemical Refinery of the Chuquicamata Division.
Risk Identification in the Chilean Tunneling Industry
Published in Engineering Management Journal, 2018
Eric Forcael, Hugo Morales, Duzgun Agdas, Carlos Rodríguez, César León
Data for this project were collected through surveys of construction professionals in Chile, which is home to some of the largest ongoing tunnel construction projects as described next. An example of an ongoing tunnel construction project is the addition of two new lines of the Santiago Metro, one of the 30 largest subway systems in the world (De Grange, 2010). Another substantial Chilean project is the construction of the Chuquicamata Underground Copper Mine, one of the largest underground copper mining projects in the world. It is anticipated that more than 1,000 km long tunnels will be built by the end of this project in 2060 (Vargas, 2016).
In-pit crushing and conveying technology in open-pit mining operations: a literature review and research agenda
Published in International Journal of Mining, Reclamation and Environment, 2020
Morteza Osanloo, Morteza Paricheh
Other solutions proposed to overcome this problem include adding ultra-class haul trucks, using automated trucks, switching to underground mining and installing an In-Pit Crushing and Conveying (IPCC) system. Larger trucks cannot prevent haulage difficulties because they lead to unwanted impacts on downstream processes. Larger trucks convert ore to waste in the pit and concentrate to tailing in the processing plant. They need higher benches and bigger blasting patterns and it causes the ore/waste discriminating to be difficult and also the dilution to be uncontrollable. Therefore, a large amount of ore materials becomes waste or marginal in terms of grade. Again, in the crushing and milling process, the comminution process would be more expensive due to a larger proportion of boulders. The processing recovery also decreases logarithmically when the feed grade is decreased. A reduction in the processing recovery means that a larger proportion of input useful materials will be transferred into tailing [4, 22, and 23]. Recently, automated driverless off-highway trucks have received attention in a few cases in Western Australia (the Nammuldi iron mine and Yandicoogina iron mine) and also experimentally in the Swedish Kristineberg underground mine. While these systems are able to mitigate the operator cost, which is regarded as a major part of the haulage cost (i.e., 20–30%), they require a higher investment compared to conventional trucks with the same capacity. Plus, the required hardware and software cost about $20 million [24]. Even with this kind of sophistication, these driverless trucks cannot overcome the many problems that come along with an increase in travel distance. Switching to an underground operation is not an easy task; it requires intensive preparation work and is expensive. The preparation usually takes more than 10 years and requires very precise planning. Chuquicamata mine in Chile transitioned from open-pit to underground block caving in 2015 at a depth of 1100 meters. The capital investment was estimated to be about $1200 million [25]. The Palabora mine also switched to an underground operation at 400 meters below the 800 meters-depth-pit with a capital expenditure of about $500 million [26].