Chile Escondida Copper Mine Mill To Complete Repairs This Year
April 01 2009 - 3:37PM
Dow Jones News
Chilean copper mine Escondida, controlled and operated by
diversified miner BHP Billiton Ltd (BHP), will complete repairs at
its one of its mills this year, a company executive said
Wednesday.
Escondida, the world's largest copper mine, declared force
majeure for its copper concentrate deliveries in October 2008 after
electrical problems shut down one of its SAG mills.
"We'll definitively repair the mill during the second half of
the year and the mine will again be working at its nominal
capacity," Diego Hernandez, chief executive of BHP's Base Metals
Division, told reporters on the sidelines of business analysis and
consultancy group CRU's 8th Annual World Copper Conference.
According to Escondida's initial estimates, some 15% of
concentrate production at the mine was lost because of the problem
at the Laguna Seca SAG mill, which crushes copper-containing ore
into smaller pieces. Cathode production at the mine wasn't
hurt.
In 2008, Escondida produced 1.26 million metric tons of copper,
15.4% lower from the 1.48 million tons it produced in 2007. The
drop was due to falling ore grades and the problems at the SAG
mill. During the year, it produced 997,491 tons of copper contained
in concentrates and 257,528 tons of copper cathodes.
BHP Billiton has a 57.5% stake in the miner. Anglo-Australian
mining company Rio Tinto PLC (RTP) holds 30% of Escondida, while an
additional 10% is held by a Japanese consortium led by Mitsubishi
Corp. (8058.TO), and the remaining 2.5% is held by International
Finance Corp. Under the terms of Rio Tinto's $19.5 billion
agreement with the Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH), or Chinalco, the
Chinese company will acquire a 15% stake in the mine.
-By Carolina Pica, Dow Jones Newswires; 56-2-820-4244;
carolina.pica@dowjones.com