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Chilean state-owned miner Codelco, the world’s No. 1 copper producer, has invested $1.4 billion in the Salvador copper mine, extending the productive life by 47 years and increasing production by almost 50%. The Rajo Inca project will convert Salvador, which has been in operation since 1959, from an underground to an open-pit mine.
“Until now this division depended on three underground mines. The new Salvador will get all the ore supply from a single open-pit mine, with copper grades 40% higher than at present, which will affect the increase in production and productivity,” Juan Benavides, chairman of Codelco’s board of directors, reported in the statement.
The mine was expected to run out of ore this year, but the expansion – approved in January – gives Codelco access to an additional 796 million tonnes of ore, with an estimated copper grade of 0.59% on average.
The Salvador division currently has the lowest productivity of all the Chilean miner’s deposits, generating only 50,600 tonnes, just under 3% of Codelco’s total production, last year.
With surface exploitation, the mine will produce 90,000 tonnes per year. Full production from the new section is expected to start in the first half of 2023.
Rajo Inca is one of six major projects the Chilean miner is pursuing as part of its 10-year, $40bn initiative to upgrade its sprawling but depleted mines.
A new underground operation at the company’s Chuquicamata division went into production in 2019, while a new level of the El Teniente underground mine will follow in 2023.
Codelco, which delivers all its profits to the state, holds vast copper deposits, representing 10% of the world’s known proven and probable reserves and around 11% of annual global copper production, with 1.8 million tonnes of production in 2020.
