South America

Antamina
Cross-section through the Antamina deposit, showing the planned phases of mining.	An overview of the ore-processing route at Antamina.	The Antamina concentrator contains the world's largest single-circuit milling plant.
One of the mine's Bucyrus 495B shovels loading a Caterpillar 793 hauler in the open pit.	Contractor Spie Capag used a Tesmec trencher for cutting the trench for the concentrate pipeline alongside an existing highway.	The milling section in the plant.
Loading concentrates at Punta Lobitos for export.	Peru's Antamina open pit; the mine uses a conventional truck-and-shovel approach.	Haul trucks with the Antamina open pit in the background.

Bayóvar Phosphate Project
Phosphate	The plant will preserve groundwater for the people of Sechura.	Road building as part of the project.

Carajas Iron Ore Mine
A truck in operation at the Carajas Mine.	The Carajas Mine holds over 1.5 billion tons of iron ore reserves.	Carajas is Brazil's largest iron ore mine.
The volcanic sequence has been weathered to a depth of between 100m and 150m.	For Q2 2008 Carajas produced 23.2 million tons of iron ore, a 9.4% increase on the previous corresponding period.

Cerro Colorado Copper Mine

Cerro Matoso Nickel Mine

Cerro Vanguardia
Location map of the Cerro Vanguardia mine.	Geologists examining core samples at the Cerro Vanguardia gold project in southern Argentina.	Overall site plan.
Mining equipment on-site.	The process flow diagram.	The processing plant at Cerro Vanguardia gold and silver mine in Argentina – designed with significant input from AATS.

Chassoul Gold Mine
Construction of the Chassoul mine began in 1991 with production commencing in September 2009.	There are nine identified veins in the mine with the upper levels producing 3.43oz/t.	The mine is located 70km from the capital San Jose and covers an area of 400ha.

Chuquicamata Copper Mine
The mine has been operating since 1910.	The mine will be developed at an estimated cost of $2bn.

Collahuasi Copper Mine
Collahuasi lies in the far northeast of Chile, close to the border with Bolivia.	Collahuasi’s reserves are held in three main orebodies; Ujina and Rosario, and the smaller Huinquintipa oxide deposit.	The open pit at Collahuasi.
The ore storage shed protects run-of-mine ore from dust generation before processing.	Sulphide ore is treated by flotation to produce concentrates for export.	The oxide circuit flowsheet involves both leaching to recover the contained copper and electro-winning to produce copper cathodes.
Handling copper cathodes in the electro-winning plant.	High-purity copper cathodes awaiting shipment at the electro-winning plant.

El Castillo Gold Project
The El Castillo gold project is located in one of the largest gold-producing regions in Mexico.	Average annual production is forecast to reach 5Mtpa to give 52,000oz a year by the second half of 2009.	Mine owner Castle Gold has designed and constructed much of the actual project itself.

El Cerrejón
Location of Cerrejón coal mine.	Cerrejón is a multi-seam operation.	Ripping and dozing coal prior to loading.
Loading coal with a LeTourneau front-end loader, into 154t-capacity Wabco hauler.	Tipping coal into one of the primary crushers.	Coal seams are prepared for mining by cleaning the top of the seam.
Each of the loadout silos has a capacity of 10,000t.	Development of Cerrejón included construction of a dedicated rail line used to import supplies and export coal.

El Torno Gold Mine
A gold bearing vein.	Jujuy province.

Escondida
The Escondida open pit with the concentrator behind.	Loading ore in the pit.	Escondida’s truck fleet includes 47 Caterpillar 793B and 793C haulers.
The Escondia concentrator, which has been expanded to handle 127,000t/d of ore.	Grinding mills in the Escondida concentrator.	Inside the concentrator.
Concentrates are piped to Escondida’s port at Coloso.

Esperanza Copper Gold Mine
The Esperanza copper-gold project, situated in the Sierra Gorda district of Antofagasta, northern Chile.	The project is on schedule to begin production in 2010.

Gualcamayo Gold Mine
In September 2009 the mine was officially inaugurated, which coincided with its first quarter of commercial production.	Cash costs for producing gold at the mine are expected to be below $450/oz.	Gualcamayo gold mine is an open-pit heap-leach mine 270km from San Juan, Argentina.

Jaguar Mining Paciência Gold Mine
The Paciência mine has expected reserves of about 394,000oz of gold.	Jaguar has a 1,800t/day carbon-in-pulp (CIP) processing plant at the Paciência site.	Gold production at the Paciência mine is expected to start in mid-2008.
The Paciência project is being supplied with electrical power from state-owned utility CEMIG.

La Colosa Gold Mine
Drilling was suspended in February 2008	The company plans to invest heavily in exploration

Lomas Bayas
Map showing the location of Lomas Bayas and Fortuna de Cobre.	P&H has also supplied a 100XP blasthole drill to Lomas Bayas.	Open-pit mining at Lomas Bayas.
A P&H 2800XPB electric mining shovel, as used at Lomas Bayas.	The Fortuna de Cobre copper prospect.	Leachable copper ore from Fortuna de Cobre.

Mantos Blancos Copper Mine
Copper sheeting.	Cathodes being packed at the Mantos Blancos copper mine in Chile.	Open pit operations.
A truck at Mantos Blancos.	A truck at the site.

Minera Los Pelambres
Los Pelambres is located at an altitude of 3,200m in the mountains to the north of Santiago.	The open pit at an early stage of development.	The primary crusher at the mine, which feeds the main conveyor to the concentrator plant.
The conveyor carries crushed ore some 24km to the concentrator, which is 1,300m lower than the mine.	The concentrator at Los Pelambres.

Minera Yanacocha
Some 45km from Cajamarca in northern Peru, at an altitude of 4,700m, Minera Yanacocha operates a complex of four gold mines and a processing facility. This was the first significant foreign investment in Peruvian mining for 20 years. The mine is located in the Peruvian Andes at an elevation of 14,000ft above sea level.	A haul truck, part of the Minera Yanacocha fleet. The ore is transported 2.5km or more to the leach pads by the German contracting company Ed Zublin, using wheeled loaders and 85t-capacity trucks, and is heaped by stackers.	Since the Carachugo ore is porous, run-of-mine ore can be heap-leached without crushing. The initial heap was cyanide leached at a rate of 10 litres/h/m² into a 16,000m³ pond and the solution treated in a Merrill Crowe plant.

Molejon Gold Project
The Molejon gold project is about 120km west of Panama's capital Panama City and about 10km from the Caribbean coast.	Petaquilla expects initial production to be 120,000oz of gold annually.	300 staff are employed at the Molejon gold project.

Paragominas Bauxite Mine
The Paragominas bauxite mine is located in the east of the state of Pará in Northern Brazil, one of the world's richest sources of bauxite.	Bauxite from the Paragominas Mine has average content of 50% applicable alumina, 4% reactive silica, and a granulometry level below 65in with 12%-13% humidity.

Radomiro Tomic Copper Mine
Rotary blasthole drilling in the open pit.	A P&H 4100 shovel loads Caterpillar 793B haulers in the open pit. Komatsu AC-drive haulers were also added to Radimiro Tomic's truck fleet during the expansion.	MAN-Takraf supplied conveying equipment for handling crushed material both before and after leaching.
A purpose-designed bucket-wheel excavator is used to remove leached ore from the pads once the copper has been extracted.	Solvent-extraction plant fluid streams are cleaned using Codelco-designed equipment.	External view of the electrowinning tankhouse showing the cell ventilation system…
…and inside the tankhouse.	Radimiro Tomic's environmental centre, where Codelco is developing its reclamation planting strategies.

Riesco Island Project
Riesco Island was surveyed in the 1970s and 1980s to determine its coal resources and three major deposits were identified.	The mining will be carried out in a open cast fashion.	The coal obtained will be low quality but good for power station use.

Rio Blanco Mine
Rio Blanco lies on the northern end of the Peruvian copper-gold belt.	The mine will operate as a conventional open pit mine.	Centred primarily on Henry's Hill, the mine also receives a small contribution from the adjacent Soho deposit.

Samarco Alegria
Samarco Mineracão's Alegria iron ore mine, Brazil.	Mine and concentration flowsheet.	Pipeline route section.
Concentration plant.	A cross-section of the Guilman-Amorhim hydro plant.	A map of the Muniz Freire hydro plant.

Samarco Project
Samarco project in South East Brazil

San Bartolomé Silver Mine, Potosi
When it reaches full capacity, expected in August 2008, San Bartolomé will be the world's largest pure silver mine.	Throughput of the San Bartolomé plant is designed for up to 5,600t/day and it is expected to recover 96.1 million ounces of silver in doré over the project's life.	San Bartolomé is expected to have a 15-year mine life and produce around 9 million ounces a year.

Spence Copper Cathode Mine,

Tintaya Open Pit Copper Mine
The Tintaya Copper mine has over 1300 employees.	Feasibility studies currently underway are expected to confirm the potential of the region to produce over 500,000 tons of copper annually within the next five years.	Efforts are also under way to increase truck productivity and reduce haulage distances.
The Tintaya orebody is defined as a copper skarn deposit, which consists of Cretaceous sedimentary rocks intruded by monzonitic plutons, with bornite, chalcopyrite, chalcocite and copper oxides.	An open pit copper mining and processing operation, the Tintaya mine is located at an elevation of 4,100 metres in the Yauri district of Espinar Province, Cusco region, southern Peru.	The mine produces around 120,000 tons of copper in cathode and concentrate form each year.

Zaldívar
Zaldívar is 3,300m above sea level in northern Chile.	The trucks from the mine discharge material into a dump pocket.	State-of-the-art electromechanical equipment is used in the mining process.
Acid used at Zaldívar arrives via railcars and is transferred to remote storage tanks.	The tertiary crushing plant, including stacking, is fully automated.	Schematic diagram of the production process.
The ore is fed to the primary crusher by a Krupp variable-speed apron feeder.

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