Editing Codelco (section)

=====The future of Chuquicamata=====
{{update|section|date=March 2025}}
Plans to go underground and mine the rest of the Chuquicamata orebody by block caving are now well advanced.  At the SIMIN conference in 2007 in Santiago<ref>[http://www.simin.cl/PDF-Viernes-24-08/Proyecto_Chuquicamata_Subterranea.pdf ''Proyecto_Chuquicamata_Subterranea '']{{dead link|date=May 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>{{broken link|date=March 2025}} Codelco engineers detailed a possible future mining plan.  The open pit is becoming gradually uneconomic and it was estimated that mining would slow down and stop by 2020.  In the meantime the mill will be kept up to its 182,000 tonnes per day capacity with sulphides from Radomiro Tomic and Alejandro Hales.  The underground mine will start up in 2018 and when it reaches full capacity of 120,000 tonnes per day in 2030, the balance of the tonnage will come from the Alejandro Hales underground mine.  It is estimated that extractable underground reserves below the present pit total 1,150 million tonnes of ore grading 0.76% copper and 0.052% molybdenum.

This remarkable mine was for many years the world's largest annual producer until overtaken recently by [[Escondida]] and it is one of the largest ever copper mining excavation.  It has produced over 29 million tonnes of copper in total, far more than any other mine
.<ref name="yaci">''Yacimientos Metaliferos De Chile, Carlos Ruiz Fuller & Federico Peebles, page 54.''</ref><ref>[http://www.cochilco.cl/cochilcoswf.htm ''Cochilco Yearbook 1986-2005''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080206074751/http://www.cochilco.cl/cochilcoswf.htm |date=2008-02-06 }}</ref>