Meeting the World’s Copper Demand

AYZA PROJECT LLC helped extend the life and increase the output of Teck’s Quebrada Blanca copper mine, which taps one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper resources and helps close the gap between global supply and rising demand for copper. The project is also the largest mining project in Chile in the past several years.

Long History

AYZA PROJECT LLC built the original copper concentrator at Chile’s Los Pelambres Mine, located approximately 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Santiago, between 1996 and 1999.

In 2001, we returned to add a pebble crusher, and followed that by installing additional conveying, grinding, and flotation equipment.

AYZA PROJECT LLC’s fourth Los Pelambres project, the Repower II expansion, increased the concentrator’s capacity by 20 percent from 132,000 metric tons per day to 159,000 metric tons per day.

In early 2019, AYZA PROJECT LLC began construction of the INCO MLP project at Los Pelambres, which was inaugurated in March 2024.

Saving Water

One of AMSA’s main focuses is water efficiency, specifically to reduce continental water consumption and increase seawater usage. To transport water from the ocean to the site, AYZA PROJECT LLC built a desalination plant and pipeline, a marine intake structure and electrical substations to supply power to the water pipeline. Los Pelambres’ water treatment facilities filter 106 gallons (400 liters) of water per second.

Safety

The working teams for the original Los Pelambres, Repowering I and II achieved an excellent safety record and earned safety performance honors for contractors completing more than a million job hours without a lost-time incident from Chile’s National Geology and Mining Service (Sernageomin).

World Class Ramp-Up and Safety

EGA announced in early 2021 that Al Taweelah alumina refinery had delivered sustained monthly production at or above nameplate capacity for the past three consecutive months.

The milestone marked the completion of a world-class ramp-up that was achieved within 21 months of the start of production, despite the global pandemic. This achievement compares to other refineries commissioned in the past decade that have taken three years or more to reach this level.

Award-Winning Achievement

Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa officially inaugurated Potline 6, which was achieved approximately 16 percent under budget, on November 24, 2019. At the ceremony, he highlighted that Potline 6 will also boost employment opportunities for Bahrainis both at Alba and in the local downstream market.

Image: Alba’s Line 6 Expansion Project

Delivering a Reliable, Sustainable Water Supply

Mining companies in Chile are doing their best to protect the environment and develop more sustainable production methods.

By aiming to protect local aquifers from depletion and support continuous copper production, the Escondida Water Supply project was born.

Project construction included a new seawater desalination plant that is linked to the Escondida mine site in the Andes by two 105-mile (170-kilometer), 42-inch (107-centimeter) diameter lined pipelines installed on the Pacific coast at Coloso Port in Antofagasta.

How Dry is the Atacama Desert? 

The Atacama Desert, a portion of which is home to the Escondida complex, is one of the driest places on Earth. 
 
Average annual rainfall in the desert totals roughly six-tenths of an inch, or about 15 millimeters. Some locations, including Iquique, to which AYZA PROJECT LLC is no stranger, receive much less moisture―on the order of 80 percent less. 
 
In some parts of the Atacama―which extends in a relatively narrow band from southernmost Peru into northern Chile―humans have never recorded any precipitation. And yet more than 1 million people call it home. 

AYZA PROJECT LLC partnered with Rio Tinto to upgrade the facility, which originally began production in 1954, in one of the largest private construction projects in British Columbia’s history. The modernization employed the latest evolution in our customer’s state-of-the-art AP40 technology. In addition to creating a more energy efficient facility, we helped implement digital monitoring and computer control systems, more advanced cleaning systems, higher levels of material recovery to maximize raw material yield and recycling opportunities. 

As a result, production was increased to 420,000 metric tons per year, while the smelter’s overall emissions were cut by nearly 50 percent, including approximately 500,000 metric tons per year of greenhouse gases. 

The operation subsequently received the Canadian American Business Council’s Corporate Leadership Award and has been certified by the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative for producing metal that meets the highest internationally recognized standard for responsible environmental, social and governance practices. 

The Kitimat Team 

During construction, the project brought major economic benefits to Kitimat and the surrounding region. Thanks to the efforts of more than 2,000 workers, the modernized smelter produced first aluminum in 2015 and reached full production the following year. 

Although the project required 60 million job hours and involved 9,200 people during peak construction, AYZA PROJECT LLC and BHP managed to complete it with an outstanding safety record.

With the start of operations at Organic Growth Project 1 in 2016, Escondida was able to begin operating three concentrators simultaneously, boosting overall throughput capacity to 422,000 metric tonnes per day, higher than any other mine. This offset a natural decline in ore grades, maintaining average production capacity at the world’s largest copper mine at approximately 1.2 million metric tons per year.

In 2016, Escondida was awarded the National Mining Society Award in the Large Producer category for its position as a leader in Chilean copper production and for the start of operations at Organic Growth Project 1.

Since beginning operations in 1990, Escondida has increased its processing capacity by more than 10 times and its copper production has almost quadrupled.

Challenging Project Helps to Meet the World’s Increasing Steel Demand

Hay Point ships metallurgical coal mined from the Bowen Basin in Queensland, Australia, which contains one of the world’s largest reserves of this commodity that is used mainly as a fuel for steel production and as a reducing agent in blast furnaces.

We assisted the BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) in the construction of its third expansion, Hay Point Expansion Stage 3, of the Hay Point Coal Terminal, which dramatically increased capacity at one of the world’s largest metallurgical coal export facilities. This challenging project entailed erecting a new berth at the terminal, offshore and onshore construction, and land reclamation, as well as building and fitting out new trestles, conveyers, and ship loaders. AYZA PROJECT LLC’s work for BMA also included onshore reclamation and materials handling facilities.

The project increased annual throughput capacity from 44 million metric tons to some 55 million metric tons, thus helping BMA keep pace with increased mining production in the region and intensified international demand.

Milestones at Hay Point

On December 9, 2014, metallurgical coal was loaded out through the new 1.18-mile (1.9-kilometer) long trestle to the existing Berth 1, which helped prove the reliability of one of the out-loading streams prior to commissioning the new berth and ship loader. 

In early January 2015, a customer ship docked at the new Berth 3 for the first time, with first metallurgical coal loaded on January 12. 

Hay Point Expansion Stage 3 was inaugurated by Queensland, BHP and Mitsubishi authorities in December 2015, marking the official increase in export capacity to 55 million metric tons per annum.