Vale has opened its first copper plant in the IV Region of Coquimbo, Chile.
The Valles plant will be the company's first to produce cathodes on an industrial scale using the hydrometallurgical process, and is expected to have an annual production capacity of 18.5kt of copper cathodes.
The project began in 2005 with exploration that led to the discovery of an open pit mine and an underground mine.
The plant uses environmental preservation technologies that enable lower water consumption and a bioleaching system in its hydrometallurgical process that was developed in Chile to make copper soluble from some types of sulphate using bacteria.
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