What this place is
More than 4,500 km of tunnels run under the Andes here — longer than the road from Santiago to Bogotá. Codelco is now driving the New Mine Level a further 100 m down to keep it alive.
Grade. Over a century of mining has moved the operation into deeper, lower-grade and more stressed rock.
“Grade” is the percentage of the useful stuff in the rock. A copper mine at 0.5% grade throws away 199 tonnes of rock for every tonne of copper it sells. That single number decides whether an orebody is a mine or just an interesting piece of geology.
What comes out
Copper
The reddish metal that carries electricity better than anything except silver, and which humans have been smelting…
Molybdenum
A silvery metal added to steel so it keeps its strength at high temperature and under pressure.
A “by-product” is a metal recovered because it happens to be in the same rock, not because anyone went looking for it. Its supply therefore follows the primary metal’s economics, not its own.
Who owns it
| Company | Role | Interest |
|---|---|---|
| Codelco | State miner | Owner-operator |
As publicly reported by the operators. Ownership of large mines changes; verify against current company filings before relying on it.