Toquepala operations consist of an open-pit copper mine and a concentrator. Copper is refined at the SX/EW facility through a leaching process. The concentrator has a milling capacity of 60,000 tons per day and uses an state of the art computering monitoring system in order to coordinate inflows and optimize operations.
The SX/EW facility has a production capacity of 56,000 tons per year of LME grade A copper cathodes of 99.99% purity from solutions obtained by leaching low-grade ore stored at the Toquepala and Cuajone Mines. The Toquepala concentrator expansion, for which Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) studies were recently approved, will increase annual production capacity by 100,000 tons of copper and 3,100 tons of molybdenum at a total capital cost of approximately $1.2 billion.
Toquepala is located in southern Peru, 30 kilometers from Cuajone and 870 kilometers from Lima. Overburden removal commenced in 1957 and ore production commenced in 1960. Toquepala operations utilizes a conventional open-pit mining method to collect copper ore for further processing in the respective concentrator.
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