When production begins, the Sierra Gorda mine will process 110,000 tons of ore daily, producing 120,000 tons of copper per year. In addition, the project will be one of the largest molybdenum producers in the world, averaging about 50 million lbs. of molybdenum production each year during the first years of the mine’s life.
Sierra Gorda will operate using seawater captured from the cooling systems at a thermal electricity generating plant, located on the coast at Mejillones. Instead of being discharged into the sea, the water will be transported to the Sierra Gorda mine and plant through a 142.6 kilometre pipeline passing inland over a coastal plain and hills. Apart from the pipeline itself, its key infrastructure includes the coastal station and two inland pump stations, with a total of 24 pumps and pumping rate of 1,500 litres per second. Additionally, port facilities and fibre optic cable all along the pipeline were provided.
“Our project is located in a desert, with extremely dry conditions and scarce water reserves. That is why our top priority was securing the water supply and avoid exhausting this resource in the region. An important design innovation was the use of seawater on the project site, through the pipeline,” said Jaros┼éaw Romanowski, Executive Vice President and CFO of KGHM.
The pipeline’s hydraulic tests, which were critical to the project’s commissioning, were executed from December 14, 2013 and successfully completed on February 28, 2014. Seawater pumping to a pond of 750,000 cubic metres capacity will start in March 2014.
“We are proud to see on-time delivery of the pipeline construction, with all hydraulic and pressure tests for the pipe and pump stations. This success is definitely one of the key milestones towards technical commissioning of the Sierra Gorda project, planned for June 2014”, said Maciej ┼Üci─à┼╝ko, General Manager at Sierra Gorda SCM. “The entire project development, from exploration to initial production, took 10 years, considerably shorter than a project of this size normally takes.”
After the start of production, the Sierra Gorda mine will use 251,808 cubic metres of water daily - 92 million cubic metres annually. As ore processing increases from 110,000 to 190,000 tons per day, resulting in average annual copper production of about 220,000 tons over a 20 year mine life, the amount of water used daily in the mine will grow to 442,000 cubic metres daily.
