El Morado Superior glacier in the Andes mountain chain in central Chile. Credit: Orlando Ruz/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Feb 24 2014 (IPS)

The idea sounds like harebrained science-fiction, but the accelerated retreat of glaciers due to global warming and the effects of mining is leading scientists to seek to restore or recreate these valuable reservoirs of fresh water.

“There are a number of technologies for saving and creating new glaciers,” Chilean glaciologist Cedomir Marangunic told Tierramérica.“To create a new glacier the natural process must be simulated, that is, winter snow accumulation must be greater than the summer melting. And that is not difficult to achieve; the main thing is to do it at minimum cost and in an environmentally sustainable way.” – Cedomir Marangunic

This sounds like a sweet promise for Chile, a mining country with at least 3,100 glaciers, most of which are clearly retreating, according to official data.

Glaciers, huge masses of ice and recrystallised snow, store 69 percent of the planet’s fresh water. They form when annual snowfall exceeds the amount of snow melted in summer, and accumulate enormous amounts of material over geologically short time frames.

But when it comes to the work of human hands, the time needed to create a glacier depends on the money invested, Marangunic said. The minimum time for a sufficient mass of snow to turn completely to ice is three years, he said.

“The natural process must be simulated, that is, winter snow accumulation must be greater than the summer melting. And that is not difficult to achieve; the main thing is to do it at minimum cost and in an environmentally sustainable way,” said Marangunic, a geologist at the University of Chile who holds a doctorate in glaciology from Ohio State University in the United States.

The techniques he has tested “aim at reducing melting on the ice surface, or at increasing snow accumulation,” he said.

In experiments in Chile, an artificial deposit of ice was covered with rocky detritus, which reduced ablation (the loss of ice mass) to one-quarter or one-fifth of normal, the expert told Tierramérica.

Marangunic heads a company that carries out research projects on glaciers, snow and avalanches. In 2007 he did an experiment transporting a mass of ice from one place to another.

Using mining trucks, 30,000 tonnes of ice were taken in one day to a pre-prepared site. In its original location, the ice was retreating 15 cm per year, while in the new site it retreated 30 cm the first year, but then less and less, as expected. In 2012, the ice retreated only three centimetres.

The expert tried transforming an ice field into a small glacier, by putting up barriers like those used for avalanche protection or on ski pistes, and modifying them to change wind direction during storms. This had the effect of doubling snow accumulation.

Among the most frequently used techniques is “covering part of the glacier surface with geotextile sheets, which reduces surface ablation,” the glaciologist said.

Marangunic pointed out that care was needed, for example, when a glacier suffers impacts and “water flows into the glacier’s basin due to rapid melting of the ice mass, but is then removed for artificial snow accumulation.”

The whole process, he said, “may affect the local ecosystem, which must be managed in order to avoid harm.”

In the view of Matías Asun, the head of Greenpeace Chile, these studies are inconclusive and “provide no basis to indicate they may be viable, sufficient, successful, cost-effective technologies, let alone that they may be applicable to all areas where there are glaciers.”

In a dry winter, for instance, there would not be enough snow for the accumulation a new glacier needs. And, because of climate change, it is expected that there will be increasingly more dry winters, Asun said.

“I don’t doubt the good intentions of those who are trying to develop strategies to protect glaciers, because it is a fact that many of the risks could be minimised,” Asun told Tierramérica.

“The key thing is to protect existing glaciers effectively. The glaciers are there, and they should stay there,” he said.

In Latin America, 82 percent of the reserves of fresh water in glaciers are in Chile, according to Greenpeace. But a large proportion of Chilean glaciers are, or will be, threatened by climate change and the actions of the mining industry.

“They are a strategic water reserve and an important part of the region’s heritage, yet at the moment they are not protected by law,” as they are in neighbouring Argentina, Asun said.

Current legislation allows a productive project to encroach on a glacier, if the impact is stated in the environmental impact study and some form of compensation is made.

In a recent appearance before parliament, glaciologist Alexander Brenning, of the University of Waterloo in Canada, said the magnitude of interventions on glaciers in Chile was unparalleled in the world, and he urged that the cumulative effects be assessed.

Parliament is studying a bill that would include a clear definition of glaciers and a permanent register of them.

In Marangunic’s view, it is essential that the definition does not close off a large part of the territory to all kinds of activities, such as tourism or development projects, “without contributing anything to the permanence of glaciers.”

The ownership status of glaciers must be established, especially those situated on private land, he said.

“Will they be able to be purchased and traded, as happens with water rights?” asked the expert, referring to the Water Code of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), which made water a private resource.

Mining projects like the Anglo American company’s Los Bronces, the state Chile Copper Corporation’s Andina 244 and Escalones, and Barrick Gold’s Pascua Lama, are the main threat to several glaciers in this country, according to environmentalists.

For Marangunic, in contrast, while “some mining” may damage glaciers, “environmental pollution in big cities like Santiago, or smoke from burning pastures and forests,” also affect the ice masses.

Therefore, in his view, the future law must be even-handed for all. “How can Santiago be penalised for producing the smog that affects the glaciers in the mountains?” he asked.

Stopping the retreat of a relatively small glacier can be achieved in a year. “But getting a glacier that has been shrinking for decades or centuries back to its original size will surely take as long again,” although a large investment may accelerate the process, he said.

In Asun’s view, “the urgent thing now is not to wait thousands of years to reproduce a glacier, to see if it works, but to proteet what is already there.”

Playing God “turns out like we saw in Jurassic Park. Since the glaciers are there, let’s protect them,” he concluded.

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Photovoltaic panels from a University of Antofagasta research project. Credit: Courtesy of David Pasten

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Oct 8 2013 (IPS)

The mining industry in the north of Chile, the world’s leading producer of copper, is trying to partially satisfy its insatiable appetite for energy with a renewable, ever-available source: the sun.

Sunshine is abundant in the northern desert of Atacama, one of the hottest places on earth with one of the highest concentrations of solar energy: between 7.0 and 7.5 kilowatt-hours per square metre per day, according to studies by the University of Chile.

If solar panels were installed on an area of 400 square kilometres, the energy could cover all of the country’s needs.

At this time, 90 percent of the electricity generated in northern Chile is consumed by the steadily growing mining industry. The remaining 10 percent goes to residential use, businesses and the public sector.

Solar projects with a total investment of 1.4 billion dollars are being carried out in the region of Tarapacá, on the border with Bolivia. One of them, the Atacama Solar park, will generate 250 MW on 1,000 hectares with an investment of 773 million dollars.

In the same region, the Pica Solar Complex, involving an investment of 228 million dollars, will produce 90 MW for the energy grid that supplies the northern part of the country.

In Antofagasta, slightly to the south but 1,700 km north of Santiago, the state-run National Copper Corporation (CODELCO) inaugurated Calama Solar 3 in June 2012 – the country’s first industrial solar power plant, which will supply electricity to the area around the Chuquicamata mine.

The plant will have an installed capacity of one MW and will reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 1,680 tons a year, according to CODELCO.

The mining industry’s interest in solar energy has emerged as projects for producing more traditional sources of energy, to fuel the industry’s growth, have run into difficulties one by one, mainly blocked by legal rulings aimed at protecting the environment from negative impacts.

The cost of energy in Chile has risen seven-fold in the last decade. And the mining industry is required to show a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

“The mining companies need different kinds of energy, including electric and thermal [for heating and transport],” Edward Fuentealba, a professor in the department of electrical engineering in the University of Antofagasta, told Tierramérica.

“Today, solar technologies can supply thermal energy, displacing diesel or gas, which would be profitable,” he added. Chile imports nearly all of the fossil fuel it consumes.

Solarpack, the Spanish company that is building Calama Solar 3, claims it is the world’s most productive photovoltaic plant per unit of installed power.

The company had already built Calama Solar 1 and 2, which generate nine MW each. And in March it began to build the 25 MW Pozo Almonte Solar plant in Tarapacá, to supply 13 percent of the daytime energy needs of the Doña Inés mining company in Collahuasi. According to Solarpack, this plant will avoid the emissions of 50,000 tons of CO2 a year.

But despite the enthusiasm, solar energy has limitations because it is not available 24 hours a day, Fuentealba explained.

“Today it can cover only a limited percentage of demand, less than 20 percent, whether through non-concentrated or concentrated photovoltaic technologies,” he said.

Concentrated photovoltaic technology uses lenses or other optics to concentrate a large amount of sunlight onto a small area of photovoltaic cells.

“Storage is the hurdle to providing energy during the hours without sunlight,” he said.

But in the next few years, “we are sure that we will be able to increase that percentage, to gradually displace fossil fuels until we have a system dependent solely on clean energy sources,” Fuentealba said.

Chile’s undersecretary of energy, Sergio del Campo, told Tierramérica that alternatives currently being studied include storing solar energy in molten salts, which are a mixture of sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate, both of which are produced in the north.

This technology would make a round-the-clock energy supply possible, because part of the captured heat is used to heat the molten salts up to 570 degrees C in a large tank that produces steam at night, which turns a turbine that generates electricity.

“This storage could increase production to cover up to 80 percent of demand, or even 90 percent,” del Campo said.

In the long term, “solar energy, with a price similar to that of coal, could be a real alternative for the north,” he said.

But Juan Carlos Guajardo, executive director of the Centre for Studies on Copper and Mining (CESCO), does not believe the solution for the mining industry’s energy shortages lies in sunlight.

It was the mining industry’s unsatisfied demand for electricity that drove up the costs, and both problems can only be solved with large-scale solutions that offer an abundant supply of energy, Guajardo told Tierramérica.

Generating electricity using thermal, coal or diesel-fired plants, or hydropower, could provide an answer, he said. But environmental and social conflicts are hindering, or have even entirely blocked, these kinds of initiatives.

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

A tunnel in Chile's El Teniente mine, the world's largest underground mine. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Aug 23 2013 (IPS)

Declining mineral content, the need to preserve the environment, and technological advances are causing big mining companies to turn back to underground mining in what is a rising trend in Chile and around the world, experts say.

Juan Carlos Guajardo, head of the Centre for Copper and Mining Studies (CESCO), told IPS that “not only Chile is opting for underground mining, but the industry itself is evolving towards that kind of extraction.”

The trend, he said, “is because large deposits that have been mined through open cast mining have better reserves at greater depths, and exploration in Chile is tending towards the deeper resources, since the minerals on the surface have long been exploited.”
This South American country possesses the world’s largest underground copper deposit, which is owned by the state National Copper Corporation of Chile (CODELCO) and has been mined since 1905.

The El Teniente Division mine, as it is formally named, was responsible for 25 percent of CODELCO’s total production of 1.75 million tonnes of fine copper in 2012.

Some 137,000 tonnes a day are extracted from El Teniente’s Sector 8, which is currently operating.

But the deposit under the Andes mountain range, 150 km south of Santiago, with 3,000 km of underground tunnels, has only enough copper to last until 2025 at the present rate of extraction.

As a solution, CODELCO is developing its New Mine Level project, which is expected to start operations in 2017 and will access 2.02 billion tonnes of reserves at greater depth, at an altitude of 1,880 metres above sea level, 100 metres below the current mining level.

The project will extend the productive life of the mine for another 50 years. It involves the use of cutting-edge technology and an investment of 3.3 billion dollars, similar to the amount spent throughout the history of this emblematic mine.

“CODELCO has a number of structural projects in hand, aimed at maintaining its leading position as the top world copper producer and maintaining its contributions to the Chilean state,” a company source told IPS.

If these projects were not implemented, the source added, “copper production and the generation of surpluses (financial contributions) for the state would fall dramatically, with enormous effects on the country and the company.”

Chile’s economy depends on copper, which was nationalised in 1971. In 2012, CODELCO made a profit of 7.5 billion dollars, the third-highest level in its history, thanks to output of 5.45 million tonnes.

Chile is the world’s largest producer and exporter of copper, which accounted for 12 percent of Chile’s GDP last year, and 53.9 percent of export revenue.

The main advantage of underground mining compared to open pit mining “is that in general only the ore is extracted, and waste rock is left behind,” Jorge Baraqui, acting manager of mining technology and innovation at CODELCO, told IPS.

“This means you can avoid removal of the material without economic value, and limit environmental impact,” he said.

The operational costs for an underground mine are not necessarily higher than for open pit mines.

“With open pit mining, with time excavation goes deeper and deeper and the cost of transport increases. Also, larger amounts of waste rock must be removed to get access to the same amount of mineral,” Baraqui said.

“That’s why it may be necessary in some cases to shift to underground mining methods, for which operational costs may be more competitive,” he said.

An example of this is the Chuquicamata mine, 1,650 km north of Santiago. It is the largest open pit mine in the world, and it will become an underground mine in 2019.

This is another of CODELCO’s structural projects: the state-owned firm says that in itself the conversion of Chuquicamata will cut down on dust emissions by 97 percent, in spite of building 1,200 km of tunnels.

Chuquicamata is expected to become one of the industry’s lowest-cost mines, mainly because of estimated energy savings of 50 percent.

CESCO’s Guajardo explained that as the transition from open-pit to underground mining proceeds, “there will be some cost reductions compared to the present high operational costs.”

Mining underground may reduce the cost of safety measures, as well as saving time with shorter trips back and forth, using less energy and more technology.

The star of the project is the block caving method, which is relatively low-cost, and is regarded as the method of the future.

“Block caving uses the force of gravity; it requires very little energy to break up the rock, which is undercut from below. Then, as ore is extracted from below, gravity does its work and the rock mass collapses,” Baraqui said.

“It’s a fairly economical extraction method that can be applied in large deposits with certain geotechnical and morphological features that allow them to collapse under gravity,” he said.

Baraqui said the main advantage of this method is its operational costs. “It’s the cheapest underground method for large deposits,” he said.

But there are some geotechnical risks. The main one is rock bursts: spontaneous, violent expulsions of rock which can happen in large underground mines where brittle rocks are subjected to great stress and pressure, Baraqui said.

Another hazard is windblast, caused by a sudden collapse of rock in the mine, resulting in a blast of air at high speed and pressure that is propagated through the tunnels of the mine, carrying all before it.

The move towards underground mining means that in the near future, more than a million tonnes a day of ore will be extracted from the bowels of the earth.

Esperanza copper mine. Credit: Courtesy of David Pasten

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Aug 8 2013 (IPS)

The arid climate in northern Chile has forced mining companies to seek out new sources of water. The main source is seawater from the Pacific Ocean, whose use is expected to increase significantly in the coming decade despite the high costs of extraction and transport.

The vast northern region of Chile encompasses the Atacama Desert, one of the most arid spots on the planet. It is also home to the world’s biggest copper reserves, the main source of revenue in this South American nation with 6,435 kilometres of Pacific coastline.

“In arid and semi-arid regions, where the availability of water is very limited, the ocean is an alternative for industrial processes and other uses,” Luis Cisternas of the Centre of Scientific and Technological Research for Mining told Tierramérica*.

According to figures from the Chilean Mining Council, 12,615 litres per second of freshwater were used for copper extraction in 2011 – the same year that a World Bank report warned of a considerable decline in the availability of surface water in Chile.

“The use of seawater is not only a solution for the mining companies, but also a way of freeing up freshwater for other uses and allowing the restoration of damaged ecosystems,” said Cisternas, a professor at the University of Antofagasta.

While the mining industry has used seawater in different parts of the world for many years, in Chile there are only a few isolated cases, usually on the part of small or medium-sized companies that deal with minerals whose extraction is not affected by the salinity of the water, he explained.

The first big mining company to use seawater in Chile was Minera Esperanza, a joint venture between Antofagasta Minerals and the Marubeni Corporation.

The company’s copper mine uses untreated seawater, transported through a 145-kilometre-long pipeline, in all of its processes. Seawater currently accounts for 30 percent of all of the water is utilises.

The state-owned National Copper Corporation of Chile (CODELCO) will use seawater for the first time to exploit the sulphide reserves of the Radomiro Tomic mine, in one of the structural projects the company is implementing to extend the useful life of a number of its mines.

“In the case of the Radomiro Tomic (RT) Sulphides project, the use of seawater means that pressure will not be placed on the freshwater resources of the Andes Mountains or other inland surface water reserves, in an area where no new water resources are available,” a CODELCO corporate source told Tierramérica.

The RT Sulphides project represents a new line of copper concentrate production, which involves greater consumption of water per ton of copper produced than the mine’s current exploitation of oxide ore.

“The use of desalinated seawater will make it possible to extend the useful life of the mine without increasing consumption of water from the mountains,” added the source.

For its operations, RT Sulphides will extract seawater and desalinate it through reverse osmosis, a process that uses pressure to force water through a membrane which retains the dissolved solids.

The treated water will be transported to the mine’s facilities, located 3,000 metres above sea level, through a pipeline stretching 160 kilometres. The operation will entail an expenditure of 2.6 dollars per cubic metre, according to CODELCO.

According to studies, the costs associated with a seawater supply system can represent around 20 to 30 percent of the total costs of a project located more than 150 kilometres from the coast and between 3,000 and 4,000 metres above sea level.

“This means it will be necessary to find more efficient ways of supplying seawater to mining companies,” said Cisternas.

The ideal approach, he said, “is to use untreated seawater, because desalination requires energy and causes harmful effects for the environment, but this cannot always be done.”

“It will be necessary to find a way to produce water of different qualities from seawater, since different technologies and minerals require different types of water,” he added.

For CODELCO, desalinated seawater “is not a harmless solution, because it implies greater energy consumption both for its treatment and, above all, for moving it through the pipeline to where the mines are located.”

“It is also not economically viable for projects with narrower profit margins, or for projects that do not have a guaranteed energy supply,” explained the CODELCO source.

Moreover, even if safeguards are adopted, the installation of desalination plants also generates impacts on the coastline and the marine environment.

Samuel Leiva, the campaign coordinator at Greenpeace Chile, warned of the potential long-term environmental impact of the desalination process.

Desalination plants require energy in a region where there is no water, “so the alternative is to implement projects that use fossil fuels and increase atmospheric emissions and cause environmental damage all along the coast” by releasing higher-temperature water back into the ocean, he told Tierramérica.

According to Chilean water utility Aguas Antofagasta, the use of desalination technology dates back to 2003 with the entry into operation of the Antofogasta Desalination Plant, aimed at providing part of the water supply for the population.

There are currently 14 projects of this kind underway in the country, 11 of them connected to the mining sector.

In late July, Minera Escondida announced plans to invest 3.43 billion dollars in the construction of Chile’s biggest desalination plant.

By 2022, an estimated 10 billion dollars will have been invested by the private sector in 16 new seawater treatment plants.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Smelter at the El Teniente mine, which produces 37 percent of Chile’s copper. Credit:Marianela Jarroud/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, May 22 2013 (IPS)

Chile’s position as the world’s top producer of copper is not under threat, but the country faces the challenge of transforming its copper mining industry into social capital for the long term, and addressing high energy costs, which have grown seven-fold over the last decade, experts told IPS.

“The country’s comparative advantages, in contrast to its production indicators, are somewhat threatened by the upsurge in prices, especially for electricity and supplies,” said Rodrigo Balbontín, an analyst at the Centro de Estudios del Cobre y la Minería (CESCO – Centre for Copper and Mining Studies).

With 36 percent of the global market and 28 percent of known copper reserves, Chile remains in the lead as the world’s top producer of copper, which was nationalised in 1971 by then socialist president Salvador Allende (1970-1973). Copper accounts for 45 percent of the country’s exports and provides one-third of government revenue.

In 2012 the country produced 5.5 million tonnes of copper, three percent more than in the previous year, according to the Chilean Copper Commission (COCHILCO).

The National Copper Corporation (CODELCO), the state mining company, contributed 7.52 billion dollars to state revenues in 2012, maintaining copper as Chile’s chief product. CODELCO regulates the sector, which includes transnational operators like Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton, the British-based Anglo American and Xstrata, based in Switzerland.

Bernardo Reyes, head of the mining engineering department at the University of Santiago, told IPS that Chile’s copper reserves “guarantee about 80 more years of production, but the deposits are being exhausted, and if CODELCO does not make the necessary investments, production will decline, which is its prime concern.”

Accordingly, CODELCO plans to inject 27 billion dollars in the period 2013-2020, mainly to increase production and improve copper grades, the measure of the metal’s purity. In the immediate term, it plans to increase extraction to 6.3 million tonnes in 2015.

North of the Chilean border, the world’s second producer, Peru, is planning to double its 2012 production by 2016. Output in 2012 was 141 percent higher than in 2011, reaching three million tonnes. From 2016 to 2021 Peru forecasts stable copper production at six million tonnes a year.

Balbontín said the other big copper producers, particularly Peru and China, will gradually approach Chile’s production figures “because they have more potential for growth,” but Chile’s supremacy is not at risk.

He added that Peru, rather than a threat, represents “the possibility of a strategic alliance, in which there could be an exchange of knowledge, experience and professionals.”

The United States, the other large producer in the Americas, is not a threat either, Balbontín said. “Not only in the case of copper, but in that of other materials, the United States produces for its own internal consumption,” he said.

In the experts’ view, another baseless threat to which frequent reference is made, with ulterior motives, is the alleged high cost of labour in Chile.

Reyes said that mining workers’ wages are lower in Chile than in the United States, and he dismissed the idea that they might eventually be a hindrance to investment.

Cristián Cuevas, the president of the Confederation of Subcontracted CODELCO Workers, said this was a “fictitious debate” and “unacceptable blackmail” on the part of investors in the sector.

“To think that mining industry workers are a privileged elite is to not understand anything. I would like to send the investors to experience for themselves the reality of more than 70 percent of the workers I represent, their working conditions, their living conditions, and the impact the industry has on mining towns,” he said.

The experts agreed that the chief real challenge, in contrast, is high infrastructure and energy costs, which make production more expensive, largely because of difficulties in securing access to water.

“The cost of energy in Chile has risen approximately seven-fold in 10 years, and that has a big effect on production costs,” said Reyes.

Electrolytic refining of copper consumes huge amounts of electricity.

Reyes added that water shortage in Chile’s northern desert, where the principal copper deposits are located, has forced mining companies to get their water supply from the sea.

Water from the ocean must be desalinated and transported to 800 metres above sea level. “Pumping water up into the Andes requires a great deal of infrastructure as well as energy resources,” he said.

CESCO’s Balbontín said the issue of electricity supply is related to the geographical features of the location of the copper deposits, the concentration of the energy market, and an energy mix that, in the case of the Great North Interconnected System, is based on coal and diesel fuel.

He emphasised that another very important issue to analyse is “converting the exploitation of a natural resource into long-term social capital, because copper is non-renewable, we all know that.” Copper profits should be used to build up complementary productive industries so that “we are not just left with the revenue and jobs provided by the copper industry,” he added.

However, he forecast an increase in copper production and consumption worldwide over the next decade, and stable prices that will not drop below the level of two dollars a pound, as they did in the mid-1990s.

“While copper prices have fallen significantly, this must be seen in the context of a scenario of bumper prices spanning many decades,” he said.

“The copper market today is being driven by the greatest migration in the history of humanity, which is the rural-urban migration in China, where 500 million people are becoming consumers of electric cables, buildings, food processors, cars, and so on,” he said.

He dismissed the idea that in the medium term there could be a return to the copper prices seen in 2011, which reached an average of 3.99 dollars a pound, the highest since 1966.

“But neither does it mean that the ‘super cycle’ is over and that now we will go back to the situation that prevailed in the 1990s. In the medium term that is not likely to happen,” which means will continue to be the main source of Chile’s wealth, Balbontín said.

A woman miner at the crushing plant in CODELCO's Pipa Norte mine. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
RANCAGUA, Chile, Apr 11 2013 (IPS)

Women are playing an increasingly important role in Chile’s mining industry, where little more than a decade ago they were not even allowed in the mines because of prejudice and superstitions.

Today a total of 18,000 women work in mining equivalent to 7.2 percent of the industry’s workforce. That proportion is expected to reach 10 percent in 2015.

But the state-owned Corporación del Cobre (CODELCO), the world’s top copper producer, has set itself a higher target: it wants one in five labour contracts this year to go to a woman. Programmes for reconciling family life and work, improving facilities and providing work training are being planned.

“Not much more than 10 years ago, women were not even permitted inside a mine. It wasn’t even a possibility – they weren’t allowed because they were thought to bring bad luck,” said Andrés León, human resources manager at CODELCO’s El Teniente mine.

But times have changed. “We have an ambitious goal of reaching 20 percent of women in our labour force, as operatives, heads of sections, in management and on the business side,” León told IPS.

Some CODELCO divisions are close to achieving that goal. At the Gabriela Mistral mine, 1,350 kilometres north of Santiago, 104 women make up 18.2 percent of the personnel.

“Some divisions are further behind, like ours at El Teniente, where women only make up six percent. But we want to reach at least 20 percent,” León said.

“We are convinced that women make a positive contribution to the work, specifically in the case of mining. And above and beyond their professional input, they contribute to a good atmosphere with the human touch and the formation of multi-disciplinary teams,” he said.

Mining is one of the pillars of the Chilean economy, representing 17.6 percent of GDP in 2012, when exports amounted to 47 billion dollars. Today it employs, directly or indirectly, nearly one million of the country’s 7.1 million workers.

Chile is the top world exporter of copper, exports of which earned 42.7 billion dollars last year, bringing in 7.5 billion dollars to the state coffers.

CODELCO’s plan to include more women on its payroll has led to an increase from five women at executive level and 121 in professional posts in 1998, to this year’s figures of 26 and 690 respectively.

At the same time, women are also making advances in leadership roles in trade unions.

Millaray Farías, head of process at the crushing plant at Pipa Norte, one of the eight deposits that make up El Teniente, admitted to IPS that it was not easy to work in the largest underground mine in the world.

“It’s a challenge because of the working conditions, the dust and the noise,” she said.

On a tour of the crushing plant, IPS witnessed the thick clouds of dust produced by the grinding of extracted ore and the loud noise of the machinery.

There is also the weight of the equipment each miner has to wear: helmet, lamp, belt with safety and emergency equipment and steel-toe work boots.

Farías, who came to the mine four years ago, moves along the tunnels located one-and-a-half kilometres below the surface. “In spite of the difficulties, I do get a lot of support from the people and the ‘old hands’,” she told IPS, using the mining jargon for those who work deep down in the mines.

However, the environment “is very machista” and at times “they have a hard time coping with a woman boss,” she said. “But they also look after us and we’re quite spoiled.”

In the smelting area, the situation is more difficult. Superintendent Juan Bobadilla said 17 women work in the division. But because of the high temperatures, they have not yet worked in the plant and furnaces. “We take very good care of them,” he told IPS.

In León’s view, “the care the men take of the women is very positive, it forges strong bonds, and at the same time it moderates masculine excesses, such as swearing.”

Nowadays “we have a significant number of women driving trucks or operating bulldozers and other machinery, taking the copper out of the earth and processing it to turn it into cathodes (the base product of copper for high-grade applications) that we sell and export,” he said.

As part of the effort to include more women, CODELCO and the government set up a training scheme through the National Training and Employment Service (SENCE).

The Mujer Minera (Women in Mining) programme has already trained 14 women to run equipment for mining processes in the Arica and Parinacota region in the extreme north of the country, on the borders with Peru and Bolivia.

“Many of the women who are now machinery operators, apart from the pride they feel in working for the largest copper producer in the world, are also earning five times more than they were making in other jobs,” León said.

“A large proportion of these women are heads of households, supporting their children on a single wage, and here at CODELCO they have the opportunity to give their families a better life,” he said.

At El Teniente and the other mines run by the state-owned company, measures are being implemented to support the work of women and their multi-functional role.

“We’ve started with the basics, like infrastructure, bathrooms, changing rooms and overalls for women. We’re taking the small steps first, then we’ll move on to the bigger ones,” León said.

But the main thing, he said, is providing more training so that more women come forward, because hiring women miners is “a win-win all round.”

Copper smelter at the El Teniente mine. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
RANCAGUA, Chile, Apr 10 2013 (IPS)

El Teniente, the world’s largest underground copper mine, has already been in operation since 1905, but the state-owned National Copper Corporation of Chile (CODELCO) wants to keep it running for another 50 years.

This, however, will require the acquisition of cutting-edge technology and an investment of 3.278 dollars – roughly equivalent to the total amount invested in the mine since it was first opened.

El Teniente is located in the Andes mountain range, 150 kilometres south of Santiago. In 2010, it accounted for 25 percent of CODELCO’s total copper production.

The entire copper industry was nationalised in 1971 and is a major source of revenue for Chile, the world’s leading producer of the metal.

The current production in Level 8 at El Teniente is 137,000 tons per day (TPD), which translates into 434,000 tons of fine copper a year.

But the copper is running out in this section, which only contains enough reserves to last until 2025.

This is why CODELCO is undertaking the New Mine Level project, to reach the 2.02 billion tons of copper reserves located deeper down, at an altitude of 1,880 metres and 100 metres beneath El Teniente. The goal is for the new level to enter into operation in 2017.

The expansion plans form part of “a structural project within the Corporation, alongside the projects being undertaken in the Andina and Chuquicamata Underground divisions,” said CODELCO executive Millaray Farías, process manager at the crushing plant at the Pipa Norte mine, one of the eight reserves in operation within El Teniente. “It will allow us to prolong the life of the mine for many more years, since it is estimated that it will continue to operate until 2070,” she told Tierramérica*.

In the crushing plant, the copper ore extracted from the mine is broken down into smaller pieces.

As well as guaranteeing the maintenance of current volumes of production, the new mine will make it possible, in 2020, to begin the work necessary to raise production to 180,000 TPD.

Copper is valued at more than three dollars a pound on the London Metal Exchange. Last year, CODELCO generated 7.518 billion dollars in profits for the Chilean state, the third largest surplus in its history.

In order for the New Mine Level at El Teniente to enter into operation in 2017, it will be necessary to dig 98,450 metres of tunnels and 3,454 metres of vertical openings, such as ventilation shafts and ore passes, used to transport the copper out of the mine.

The new level will be accessed by two parallel 9.4-kilometre tunnels: one for the entry and exit of vehicles carrying workers, and the other for the conveyer belt used to transport the ore and the services area.

The copper in El Teniente is mined through the panel caving method. Blocks of ore the size of 50-storey buildings are blasted from beneath so that they fracture into rubble, which is then extracted with the help of gravity and teams of miners.

One particularly touchy point is worker fatalities: an average of 6.5 miners are killed in accidents annually, according to the statistics.

CODELCO’s Occupational Health and Safety Structural Project aims to reach a record of five years without fatalities, through measures such as the automation of particularly dangerous processes and the improvement of occupational health conditions in all areas.

“Traditionally, our people were used to the idea that production could not stop. Today, little by little, they are beginning to understand that the issue of safety involves everyone, and that they not only have to watch out for their own lives, but also for the lives of the other ‘old men’ (as the men who work in the mines refer to each other),” said Juan Bobadilla, the process engineering supervisor at the El Teniente smelter.

Safety measures at the division, where 5,000 workers are employed, are based on seven corporate values, the first of which is “respect for people’s life and dignity.”

On Mar. 23, a machine operator in the Radomiro Tomic division was killed, leading workers to stage a work stoppage which forced the company to temporarily shut down operations in this section of the mine.

The El Teniente project includes semi-automatic operations directed remotely from control rooms in Rancagua, more than 50 kilometres from the work site.

The Pipa Norte deposit is currently equipped with the most modern technology. Remote-controlled load-haul-dump (LHD) loaders “are operated from the Colón concentrator – where the copper particles are separated from the ore and concentrated – located approximately 13 kilometres from the mine,” said Farías.

The crushing plant and grinding mill are also operated remotely, she added.

Despite the technological advances, human resources are still highly valued, because “naturally new technologies emerge that require the support of the old guys,” Bobadilla told Tierramérica, using the slang term popular among the mineworkers themselves.

“Therefore, those who have to retire will retire and those who are still sound will take on new positions. In other words, it will be painless,” he said.

Another of the core values espoused by CODELCO is the pursuit of sustainable development.

Bobadilla reported that 93.9 percent of the mine’s emissions of sulphur dioxide – the main contaminant produced there – are captured, so that only the remaining six percent are released into the atmosphere. The company is aiming to increase the proportion captured to 95 percent by 2017.

Luis Sandoval worked at El Teniente for 38 years. Now retired, he served as our guide at the company’s request.

As we made our way through a long underground tunnel, Sandoval told Tierramérica that El Teniente did away with mining camps years ago.

Today, the workers “go down” to Rancagua, where their houses and families are, when they finish their shifts, and only “go up” to the mines when they are scheduled to work.

As a result, “the sulphuric acid emissions from the mine do not affect the population,” he said.

The acid waste water is processed in a special treatment plant, and “we avoid releasing solid and liquid industrial wastes as much as possible, and take care of them here,” said Farías.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.