Escondida production up 18% in May
Company reduced to only 123 000 tons of copper its distance with Codelco
Pretty good has been productive year of Escondida, the country’s main private mining, controlled by BHP, during the first five months of the year.
According to the data provided by Cochilco as of May, the company reported a production of 505 000 tons of fine copper, representing an increase of 18% over the same period last year.
As explained by the mining, the increase corresponds to an increase in ore grades-amount of copper that can be extracted for each ton of material, after a series of investments that the company has been implementing to improve their production.
The most important is for the Escondida Ore Access project (EOA), which relocated the crushing and conveying facilities in order to facilitate access to higher grade ore and thus allow greater production, which currently is being reflected. This initiative required an investment of around U.S. $ 554 million.
Furthermore, this increase in copper production enabled the company to shorten the distance with Codelco, the main extractive copper company in the world.
The state firm reported a decline of 7 tons, showing a total of 628 000 tons of fine copper during the first five months of the year.
As for the other deposits, Collahuasi recorded a fall of 13 thousand tons, while Los Pelambres rose by 6000 tons.
Source: El Mercurio
