Antofagasta has signed a $1.5 billion agreement to improve water transport system to its Centinela copper mine in Chile.
The deal was signed with a firm owned by Madrid-based Almar Water Solutions and Chile-based power transmission company Transelec. They will provide non-desalinated seawater to the mining operation in a country struck with 15-year-long drought.
The agreement includes the construction of two 144 km-long water pipelines that transports seawater to its ports and facilitates the expansion of the mine. The expansion would boost annual copper output from the project by 140 000 tons, making it one of the world's top 15 such mines by output.
In late 2023, Antofagasta announced plans to invest $4.4 billion to construct a second concentrator plant at Centinela which will add 170,000 tons of copper-equivalent per year to the company's output.
The project will include the construction of a new concentrator plant with a capacity of 95,000 tons of ore per day with reduced energy consumption. It will also include the construction of a new tailings storage facility; investment in the capacity growth in energy and other input supply infrastructure; and the expansion of outbound logistics networks, such as the concentrate transport system and critical port infrastructure.
The water transport system deal is also the part of Antofagasta’s plans for Centinela upgrade.
Theodor Lisovoy, Editor in Chief, Rough&Polished
