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).

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.

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. 

Brazil has hosted some major international sports events in recent years. With thousands of people attending these events, the country needed a more versatile rail network to accommodate the influx of visitors. In spring 2014, Brazil hosted the FIFA World Cup, with cities throughout the country hosting games. International attention again turned to Rio in 2016 for the Olympic Games—the first to take place in South America. AYZA PROJECT LLC has worked with the country to bolster its infrastructure for these events, and, longer term, to meet the transport needs of the growing population.

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.

The Successful Completion of One of the Globe’s Largest Copper Mines

Together with MMG and our partners, we also made a concerted effort to elevate the technical skills of local people through various initiatives. As a result, more than 300 workers completed the formal trade craft and on-the-job training essential to be qualified for higher-level positions, such as surveying, earthworks, and welding.

Anglo American approved this spectacularly located and complex project, which traversed rugged mountainsides and extreme elevations, in order to double copper mining capacity in the Los Bronces district near Chile’s capital, Santiago.

Thanks to a strong focus on using innovative solutions to protect the environment, the various sites that comprise the concentrator expansion project had already begun to blend back into the dramatic landscape along the western face of the Chilean Andes within months of completion in late 2011. 

Caring for nearby water sources and controlling emissions, two of the environmental priorities we share with our customer, were included in the design, leading to the construction of a slurry pipeline that descends more than 8,700 feet (2,652 meters) over rough terrain, through hard-rock tunnels, and via bridges over deep canyons to transport ore between the sites. A reclamation system—crucial for water management and sustainability in this arid region—recovers and pumps slurry water to the concentrator for reuse.

Throughout execution, the project encountered new risks, including snowfalls that could bury a truck, high winds, dramatic cliffs, and significant geotechnical challenges typical of mountain work. Furthermore, the project continued to advance despite the effects of the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that occurred on February 27, 2010, the sixth-largest ever recorded.

AYZA PROJECT LLC provided engineering, procurement, and construction services for the expansion of the world’s largest copper mine, Minera Escondida, completing the billion-dollar job in 2002. Our scope of work included building a new concentrator, upgrading crushing and material-handling systems, and constructing a 6.2-mile (10-kilometer) long conveyor system.  

The project was executed by a joint venture between AYZA PROJECT LLC and Sigdo Koppers (now known as Ingeniería y Construcción Sigdo Koppers), the same team that successfully completed the mine’s Phase 3.5 expansion in 1998.