Escondida
- Ownership: 57.5 per cent
- Products: Copper
- Location: Atacama Desert, Northern Chile
Located in Chile’s Atacama Desert 170 kilometres southeast of Antofagasta, Escondida is the world's largest copper producer, producing copper from open pit mining. Escondida is also one of the lowest cost copper producers.
Operations
Minera Escondida produces copper concentrate by means of the sulphide ore flotation process, and also produces copper cathodes using the oxide ore leaching and low-grade sulphide bio-leaching processes. The Company moves around 360 million tonnes of mineral annually. The infrastructure consists of two open pit mines (Escondida and Escondida Norte, which is located 5 kilometres from Escondida), two concentrator plants (Laguna Seca and Los Colorados), an electro-winning plant to produce cathodes from oxide and sulphide ore, and two pipelines that transport copper concentrate from the mine to the filter plant, which is also owned by the Company and is located at the Port of Coloso, in the far south area of the city of Antofagasta. A seawater desalinisation plant was recently built in that same area to supply part of the operation’s water consumption.
Employment
As of December 2006, Escondida employees totalled 5,737 of whom 2,951 are direct employees and 2,786 are contractors. Find out more about Working With Us.
Markets
In general, Escondida products are mainly destined for the Asian, West European, and the North and South American markets.
Community Programs
Escondida actively works with public and private institutions and community organisations, directing its contributions to various cultural, educational and social initiatives that are oriented towards improving the quality of life of the inhabitants of the Antofagasta region.
In 1996 the Company created the Minera Escondida Foundation. The Foundation maintains permanent cooperative relationships with indigenous people, especially with the Atacamenian communities, through an office in the San Pedro de Atacama community, where the work is mainly focused on educational issues. Also, and as an expression of its Community Social Responsibility, Minera Escondida created the Centro de Entrenamiento Industrial y Minero (CEIM) (Industrial and Mining Training Centre), the objective of which is to form and develop the labour skills of mining industry workers, as well as workers from other productive sectors.
History
In 1979, Minera Utah de Chile Inc. and Getty Mining (Chile) Inc. agreed to jointly develop a mining exploration program in northern Chile. Both companies agreed to finance the project 50/50, with Minera Utah de Chile Inc. as the operator. On 14 March 1981, the joint venture discovered a commercially exploitable copper ore deposit that later gave rise to Minera Escondida. Rights to the ore deposit were subsequently transferred to the current owners, including our 57.5 per cent share.
The construction of the project was initiated in August of 1988, with the task of removing sterile material. Approximately two years later, on November 3, 1990, the first batch of material was processed in the concentrator plant, and the first shipment of copper concentrate took place on December 31 of that same year. Escondida was officially inaugurated on March 14, 1991.
The development, start-up, and subsequent expansion phases of the Company (which have increased production capacity from 320,000 to more than 1,200,000 metric tons of fine copper annually) have not only been the result of having an enormous and rich field and applying modern technologies, but are also due to the technical capacity and vision of its people.