A joint venture of mining giants Codelco and BHP-Billiton have said they will build an experimental copper treatment plant using bacterial leaching, a cleaner and cheaper technology they have developed.
If the technology passes the test at the prototype plant and eventually is deemed ready for commercial use, it could let the companies tap into vast large mineral deposits now considered economically not feasible.
The $60 million project, to be built next to Codelco’s Chuquicamata mine in northern Chile, will produce 20 000 tons of copper cathodes annually when it reaches full capacity toward the end of 2003, according to the joint venture company Alliance Copper Limited.
Codelco, the world’s number one copper miner, produced 1,6980-million tons copper in 2001. BHP-Billiton is the world’s third-largest aluminium and copper producer.
BHP-Billiton’s Escondida mine and Codelco’s Chuquicamata would be among the first to benefit if the technology is taken to an industrial scale.
In the bacterial leaching method, rock-eating micro-organisms are introduced into the mineral to extract metal through naturally occurring metabolism process.
”Alliance Copper … was created with the purpose of developing for commercial use a technology to obtain cathodes from concentrates containing a high level of arsenic and other impurities,” ACL said in a statement.
Codelco and BHP-Billiton own equal stakes in ACL, which plans to use bioleaching, solvent extraction and electro-winning — ”technology that is environmentally cleaner and economically more convenient than alternative processes.”
The company has already carried out small-scale bioleaching tests at Chuquicamata.
An ACL official said last year the company’s technological breakthrough in Chile could bring to life not only undeveloped copper deposits in Chile and Peru, but it could boost output at existing mines, where ore now considered waste could be treated. – Reuters