El Teniente (mine)

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El Teniente
General information about the mine
Punta de rieles.jpg
Tunnel 71 is currently the main entrance to the mine. Shunting tracks protrude above the roofs of Sewell, where ore has been unloaded since 1921.
Mining technology Underground mining :
1905–1946: Chamber construction
since 1946: Block construction ;
from 2020: pillar
mining opencast mining : since 2013 also on a smaller scale
Funding / year 471,157 tons of fine copper (2015)
(by-products: molybdenum , silver , gold , sulfuric acid ) t
Information about the mining company
Operating company Codelco Chile División El Teniente
previously:
* 1967–1976: Sociedad Minera El Teniente SA
* 1905–1967: Braden Copper Company
Employees 4,750 (2015)
Start of operation June 1906
Funded raw materials
Degradation of Copper / molybdenum / gold / silver / sulfur
Raw material content 0.862%
Degradation of molybdenum
Raw material content 0.020%
Degradation of gold
Degradation of silver
Degradation of sulfur
Geographical location
Coordinates 34 ° 5 ′ 0 ″  S , 70 ° 20 ′ 30 ″  W Coordinates: 34 ° 5 ′ 0 ″  S , 70 ° 20 ′ 30 ″  W
El Teniente (Chile)
El Teniente
Location El Teniente
local community Machalí
region Región del Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins
Country Chile
District Andean Cordillera

El Teniente is a copper mine in Chile . It has the largest known copper ore deposit with a content of 100  megatons of copper and the largest underground mine, for which more than 3000 km of distances have been excavated to date . The pit is located in an extinct volcano in the Andes high mountains . The ore is extracted from below the deposit by lowering the rock above it. The mine with an enormous ironworks and the emblematic mining town of Sewell was built up industrially by US entrepreneurs from 1905 and has been continuously operated and expanded since then. Nationalized in 1971, it is now part of the Chilean state company Codelco . In 2015, 4,750 employees produced 471,157 tons of fine copper and generated a surplus of 624 million US dollars. From 2020, the vehicles for mining and transporting the ore will be remotely controlled from an external control center in a completely new, highly automated mine. The production of a further 17 megatons of fine copper is planned by 2064.

Geography / geology

Location of the El Teniente mine and associated installations.
Mining Black.svgCopper mine
City locator 5.svgfactory facilities
City locator 4.svgEntrances to the mine
City locator 7.svgfactory settlements
No Cross.svgTailing
Red pog.svgcity
Volcano red 32x32.svg/ Volcano white 32x32.svgactive / inactive volcano

The El Teniente mine is located in the Andes Cordillera of central Chile, about 40 km northeast of the provincial capital Rancagua and 80 km southeast of the provincial capital Santiago in the municipality of Machalí. It is located at the southern end of a neogene metallogenetic belt, which, at a width of around 20 km, extends over a thousand kilometers in a north-south direction along the higher western slopes of the Chilean-Argentine Andes and is characterized by a series of particularly large copper deposits. The mine is located on a plateau of the Andes Cordillera, which is characterized by steep slopes and numerous gorges with extensive debris heaps over which high tower-like rock formations stand.

The mining company owns a 750 km 2 area around the mine , over which the smelting facilities are distributed. In addition to the underground pit, there is a newer open-cast mine, ore mills, flotation plants , sulfuric acid factories, an oxygen factory, a smelting works, the former factory settlements Sewell ( 34 ° 5 ′  S , 70 ° 23 ′  W ) and Caletones ( 34 ° 6 ′  S , 70 ° 27 ′  W ), as well as numerous other active or historical operating and infrastructure facilities.

The pit is located in an extinct volcano, which reached a height of 3126 m with its summit and is surrounded by mountains up to 4000 m high. The ore deposit is located on the periphery of the volcanic vent , which itself does not contain any copper mineral. The chimney called Braden Pipe ( 34 ° 5 '  S , 70 ° 21'  W ) is a conical body made of tuff , which has a diameter of 1200 m at the top and tapers downwards. Due to the force of the volcanic explosion, the andesite around the vent is riddled with cracks. Between the tuff and andesite there is breccia (fragmented rock), which is composed mainly of quartz , jasper , limestone and igneous rock . The copper ore is located where the breccia meets the tuff and also in some parts of the fractured andesite. It is the largest known porphyry copper-molybdenum deposit in the world with a content of around 100 megatons of fine copper . The ore formed 6.3 to 4.3 million years ago consists of sulfidic minerals such as chalcopyrite (75%), bornite , molybdenite , galena , chalcosine , tetrahedrite and covelline .

Operating facilities

pit

In this nameless mountain is the pit. The photo from 1942 shows the extreme terrain. In the middle of the picture below, the ruins of the former factory settlement Pueblo Hundido can still be seen on the steep slope. A little to the left are the ruins of the daytime facilities. The rock in the top right of the picture is the upper part of the volcanic vent, called the Braden Pipe. The lighter terrain on the slope near Pueblo Hundido and in the central areas of the picture belongs to the pit crater.

The pit is located within the ore deposit and the Braden Pipe. The over-the-pit portion of the deposit is currently exploited in six areas around the Braden Pipe. Between 1905 and 2011, a total of more than 3000 km of routes were excavated for the mine . There are numerous tunnels that lead to the various pit areas. Over time deeper and deeper tunnels were created. Since 1920 the deepest tunnel "Teniente 5" at 2276 m above sea level was 762 m below the top one. It has its mouth hole ( 34 ° 5 ′  S , 70 ° 23 ′  W ) 3 km west of the ore deposit above the roofs of the mining town of Sewell. The trains from the pit arrive there, even today, on an imposing bridge built in 1921/22 and tip their freight directly into a stone mill. The main conveyor tunnel "Teniente 8", located at an altitude of 1980 m, has been in operation since 1968. Its mouth hole is located ( 34 ° 5 ′  S , 70 ° 26 ′  W ) about 8 km west of the ore deposit in Alto Colón, where a steel works is located. Currently, “Adit 71” ( 34 ° 5 ′  S , 70 ° 23 ′  W ) is the main entrance to the pit for staff. It is below Sewell. From 2020 to the deepest sole are m to 1480, the approximately 11 km west of the ore deposit at Caletones her mouth hole ( 34 ° 6 '  S , 70 ° 27'  W ) will have.

El Teniente Seccion Longitudinal 1936.jpg
 The longitudinal section through the El Teniente mine (as of 1936) shows horizontal stretches that are connected with shallow or 60 ° tonnage shafts. From the mines of the upper levels , the ore is conveyed down through the roller holes to the extraction level . In this conveyor tunnel, the ore is carried away in carts with electric locomotives. In the seigeren shafts, rope travel and material transport take place.
El Teniente Block Caving de.jpg
 The dismantling takes place in block quarrying . A mining block has a height of 100 to 180 m. The base of such a block is rectangular with a depth of 80 to 87 m and a width of 90 to 120 m.

Metallurgical plant

The ore is brought from the pit to the iron and steel works. The older parts of this plant are located in Sewell about 3 km from the center of the mine and the newer at least 8 km away in an extensive industrial complex spread over the towns of Colón, Alto Colón and Caletones. The first processing takes place in the concentrator systems. One of them is in Sewell and a newer larger one built in the 1970s in Colón ( 34 ° 5 ′  S , 70 ° 28 ′  W ). The ore is crushed in rock mills and concentrated in flotation systems. The copper ore concentrate is processed into raw copper in the Caletones smelter ( 34 ° 6 '  S , 70 ° 27'  W ). There is also an oxygen factory there. The smelter is a major contributor to the pollution of Santiago with SO x aerosols. The main products of the smelter are copper ore concentrate, copper anodes, copper bars, molybdenum concentrate and sulfuric acid.

  • Above the rail ramp where the ores coming from the Teniente 5 tunnel are tipped into the stone mill. In the lower half parts of the historic mining town of Sewell . About 3 km behind this plant is the mountain in which the ore is mined.

  • The Caletones smelting plant with its characteristic smoke development, which is still 80 km away in Santiago, has a considerable share of air pollution.

  • Copper slag in the Caletones smelter. The waste product from smelting can be used in road construction, among other things.

  • Some of the copper is poured into bars and stacked ready for dispatch.

Settling basin

The first sedimentation basins for the sludge-like residues from the processing of the ores ( tailings ) were set up in the mountains near Barahona and later at the foot of the Andes near Cauquenes. The capacity of these pools has been exhausted for many years. Today the tailings are channeled to the Carén sedimentation basin ( 34 ° 7 ′  S , 71 ° 10 ′  W ) in the coastal mountains, 86 km away . There is the world's largest molybdenum precipitation plant. It processes 2500 liters / second of wastewater and reduces its molybdenum concentration to 1 ppm or less.

Other bodies

Outside of the mining area in the mountains there are also numerous operating facilities that are scattered over the neighboring regions. In Rancagua there are workshops ( 34 ° 11 ′  S , 70 ° 45 ′  W ) and the administrative headquarters. In the port of San Antonio there is a sulfuric acid terminal ( 33 ° 36 ′  S , 71 ° 37 ′  W ) for the storage and shipping of sulfuric acid produced in El Teniente.

Expansion projects

Rajo Sur

After ore mining in El Teniente had been entirely underground for 108 years, an additional open-cast mine was opened for the first time in 2013. The open pit called Rajo Sur ( outcropping south) is located at an altitude of 2,730 to 3,240 m ( 34 ° 6 ′  S , 70 ° 21 ′  W ) on the southern edge of the El Teniente pit crater. The ore is brought to a railway loading facility 7 km away by 100 t truck, from there to Sewell. The deposit contains 40.5 megatons of ore grading 0.60% copper. The 243,000 tons of fine copper contained therein are to be exploited over the course of eight years. In the immediate vicinity, soundings are made to find out whether this opencast mine can also be operated for longer. In the first year, 53,600 tons of fine copper were produced.

Nuevo Nivel Mina

In its current expansion, the mine could only be operated until 2028 with production volumes steadily decreasing over time. That is why the further exploitation of the El Teniente deposit is being promoted by the construction of a completely new, deeper pit with new works and infrastructure. The project called “Nuevo Nivel Mina” has an investment volume of 3.6 billion US dollars (1.6 billion according to the original plan plus around 2 billion cost increases). 4600 people are working on it. It was started in 2011 and is expected to be operational by the end of 2020. In the following years to 2064, with an additional $ 1.7 billion in capital and operating costs, a total of 2.02 billion tons of mineral are expected to be mined, with an average grade of 0.86% copper and 0.022% molybdenum. That would be around 17.4 million tons of fine copper and 0.44 million tons of molybdenum.

The construction of the new pit will take place without interrupting ongoing operations below the current pit. There will be seven levels. The uppermost is the lower level from which the mineral will be mined. It is located at 1880 m above sea level, 100 m below the current main transport level. There, the rock is broken by blast holes so that it can fall down under its own weight. Below the lowering level is the production level into which the mineral is allowed to slide in order to crush it from there with the help of vehicle machines and bring it to chutes. This is followed by two lower levels for ventilation, one of which is used for air supply and the other for air discharge. The connection for ventilation of the upper levels is made via vertical shafts. Below, 60 m below the production level, is the Ankarre level. There the mineral coming from the chutes from the production level is loaded onto diesel transport vehicles (capacity 80 tons). The vehicles bring it to a shaft above which three rock mills are fed. The rock mills are located below on the drainage level and crush the mineral to less than 20 cm. The mineral slides out of the rock mills to the lowest level, where it is carried out of the mountain via an 11 km long conveyor belt at an altitude of 1520 m to the Colon concentration system.

Up to 100 km of new tunnels will be driven and 3.5 km of shafts will be built for this pit. The new above-ground facilities will cover a total area of ​​105.6 ha, which corresponds to around 150 soccer fields. The pit crater above the pit resulting from mining will increase to 780 hectares by 2064. A new 17 km road will lead from the entrance to the Maitenes mine site ( 34 ° 12 ′  S , 70 ° 34 ′  W ) to Caletones. From there, two parallel tunnels, 9 km long, each 9.5 m in diameter, will lead into the pit. One for mineral transport, the other with a two-lane paved road for the transport of staff by buses.

There will be three residence centers for people inside the pit. They each consist of a bus stop, canteen, offices, parking lot for cars, conference room, first aid zone, changing rooms with cupboards, showers and toilets and there will be a museum for visitors.

La Huifa

A new deposit called La Huifa ( 34 ° 4 ′  S , 70 ° 21 ′  W ) was discovered in 2014 approximately two kilometers northwest of the El Teniente deposit . According to previous investigations, it contains 1.3 megatons of fine copper and 36 kilotons of molybdenum.

history

In the remote enclave of the mine, living and working areas have always been closely connected. The first residential camps were built at the pit entrances from 1904 without any special planning. Like this quarry stone hut with a tin roof in a photo from around 1906. On the far left is a pit entrance just a few steps away from the hut's door.
Homes and workplaces were quickly expanded as required. Houses and workshops were built on the mountainside, on concrete foundations, using wood imported from the USA. This picture shows Pueblo Hundido (Sunken Village), the first large settlement right next to the pit. Abandoned until 1922, only insignificant wall remnants remain today, which will sink into the pit crater over the next few decades.
The first ironworks was built on the slope of Cerro Negro at an altitude of 2000 to 2250 m, simply called El Establecimiento (The Branch) or, more specifically, El Molino (The Mill). This 1909 photo shows Sewell's beginnings with the first stone mill in the center. In this perspective, the pit is behind the mountain. A line of black masts that leads to the top of the facility belongs to the cable car with which the ore was brought to the rock mill.
A worker in a rock crushing plant, 1916. The hall ceiling sloping to the right and the rocky floor on the left indicate that the plant shown was built on a mountain slope, like most of the other operating facilities. The rock masses were moved through the systems using gravity.

Beginnings

The El Teniente copper deposit had been known since at least the 16th century. The La Fortuna mine was first mentioned in a document in 1760. The first data on the exploitation by the Chilean politician and large landowner Juan de Dios Correa date from 1824. Until around 1900 several owners A followed who worked in isolation from each other. In Los Perales ( 34 ° 13 ′  S , 70 ° 30 ′  W ) on the Río Cachapoal, 20 km southwest of the mine, a smelter was operated on a small scale.

Industrialization by William Braden

At the end of the 19th century, the new owner and mining entrepreneur Enrique Concha y Toro had the copper deposits examined by the Italian mining engineer Marco Chiapponi. This came to the conclusion that the El Teniente deposit has only a low copper content but that it is a very large deposit, for the economic exploitation of which an industrial mineral concentration plant should be built. To finance this capital-intensive project, Marco Chiapponi was supposed to attract foreign investors. After failed attempts in Europe, Chiapponi succeeded in getting US engineer William Braden interested in the mining project. Braden came to Chile in 1902 and examined the occurrence himself and then acquired the area and the mining rights.

Back in the United States, Braden founded Asarco with EW Nash, President of the American Smelting and Refining Company (Asarco), and Barton Sewell, Vice President of Asarco in 1904 in Portland, Maine , and with a $ 4 million loan from the Guggenheim brothers Rancagua Mines company with a capital of $ 1,250,000 . Rancagua Mines was renamed the Braden Copper Company in June 1904 and raised $ 2.3 million in capital. The Society's first president was Solomon R. Guggenheim , who was later succeeded by Barton Sewell. William Braden was one of the 12 directors along with other members and business partners of the Guggenheim family. Braden began buying equipment and machinery in the United States and commissioned the construction of a road suitable for carts that led from Graneros ( 34 ° 4 ′  S , 70 ° 44 ′  W ) into the mountains. The 40 km long route was completed by around 1,000 workers by 1905 and could thus be used until 1922.

On April 29, 1905, the Braden Copper Company, based in New York, was approved by the Department of Commerce to open branches in Chile. This made it possible to start mining operations. The date is considered to be the start of operations for El Teniente and thus the start of large-scale industrial copper mining in Chile.

Because it was hardly possible to travel through the snow-covered mountains, the work was continued in mid-1905 by 50 men who wintered near El Teniente. In order to motivate the workers to stay in the winter from March to September, everyone was offered a ticket for a lottery with high prizes and consolation prizes for the rivets. This incentive worked well for several years. In the summer of 1905/06 4,000 tons of machines and material were transported from the USA to the mine. The animal-drawn carts drove into the mountains in groups and took around five days to get there and back.

With the completion of the first rock mill and ore concentrator plant, the mine started production in June 1906. The ore was mined in the La Fortuna Pit ( 34 ° 5 ′  S , 70 ° 21 ′  W ). This was at an altitude of 3500 m and consisted of five interconnected tunnels. With the help of three electrically powered cable cars , the ore was brought to an interim storage facility and to the rock mill. Up to 1000 tons could be transported in the gondolas of the railway every day. In the mill with a daily capacity of 250 tons, the mined rock was crushed into sand. The copper ore was then separated from other minerals in the concentrator. 90 men worked around the clock in three shifts in mineral processing. The mineral concentrate was brought into the valley by carts with a loading capacity of three tons each. In 1906 and 1907, 3200 tons of copper concentrate were obtained in this way, which were shipped to the USA.

Several factory settlements with numerous buildings soon emerged, such as Pueblo Hundido B at the main entrance to the pit, or La Fortuna 4 and La Fortuna 5.

Takeover by Guggenheim

The Braden Copper Co. got into a financial crisis due to internal problems and the effects of an economic depression with falling copper prices. The death of business partner Nash († 1908), who was responsible for financial matters, made the situation even worse. In this situation, the creditors took over the Guggenheim Exploration Company in 1909, the Braden Copper Company for 1.2 million US dollars. William Braden resigned as director and one year later the El Teniente left for good to turn to other mining projects in Chile.

The Guggenheim company injected fresh capital and continued to expand the mine. There were a sulfuric acid plant in Sewell, a hydroelectric power plant in Coya, C built a smelting plant in Caletones and workshops in Rancagua. The stone mill was expanded and the work on the railway line that had begun in 1907 was resumed.

Railway line D was completed in 1911. It was connected to the state railway at the workshops in Rancagua and ran over 72 km, partly on a spectacular and risky high mountain road to the station in Sewell at an altitude of 2139 m. The journey took four hours. In the same year a new stone mill with a daily capacity of 2725 tons was built in Sewell. It was initially operated with river stones which were later replaced by steel balls. The mill capacity could be increased to 4550 tons per day by 1914 by further expansion. The first flotation plant was put into operation in 1912. The plant was manufactured in the USA and was operated by the British company Minerals Separation Ltd. operated. It was the first of its kind in the world in large-scale industry. With a daily capacity of 250 tons, the copper concentration could be increased to 25%. For each worker, 8.5 tons of mineral could be crushed and concentrated daily in the mill.

In late 1915, Kennecott Copper Corporation acquired 95 percent of the shares in Braden Copper Company for $ 57 million. Kennecott Copper Corporation was owned by the Guggenheim family with US banker JP Morgan . At that time, the mine had an area of ​​8.56 km 2 and five mines, La Fortuna (1905-1922), Regimiento N ° 2, La Centinela, La Bornitage and El Teniente (from 1918) were worked on.

The First World War brought the company a boom. In 1916 the surplus grew to 6.3 million US dollars with a production of 28,805 tons of copper. Due to the fluctuation of workers, traffic between Rancagua and the mine increased to 60,000 people. There were 15 work accidents in the pit out of a total of 31 in all plants with 2.5 million work shifts of 8 hours each. Three hospitals were built in Sewell, Caletones and Coya.

Sewell , the "city of stairs" was until 1969 one of three urban-like factory settlements on the site of the El Teniente mine. Located on a mountain slope near the pit, it housed the employees together with their families, at times 15,000 people.

In December 1918, 14,098 people lived in the installations of the mine in the mountains and in the workshops in Rancagua, including 2,025 women, 2,657 children and around 350 foreigners. In the plant and thus also in the settlements laid out according to the model of a company town, there was a strict order dictated by the company that regulated daily life, which for the people brought personal restrictions but also had economic advantages. The living space was mostly cramped but free of charge, as was the associated supply of water and electricity. There were several schools and three hospitals (built in 1917) in Sewell, Caletones and Coya. There was a church, cinema, bowling alley, swimming pool, clubs, general store, and other community facilities. The handling of alcohol was remarkable. While other mining companies in their factories recovered over 20% of the wages paid to their workers through the sale of alcohol, there was an absolute alcohol ban in El Teniente. El Teniente and all associated facilities were declared a "dry district" (Dry district, based on the model in the USA). The ban affected all staff and was rigorously monitored and enforced with the help of the works police. The statistics for 1917 show that 63 smugglers were caught, an average of 22.2 drunk people were registered per month and 1290 bottles were confiscated. The alcohol confiscated from smugglers was given to hospitals for medical purposes or, if it was of poor quality, simply thrown away.

In November 1919 El Teniente experienced its first major strike. Dissatisfaction with arbitrary layoffs at the Sewell Mills sparked him. Workers from Coya, Caletones, and other labor centers followed suit. 25 demands were made, including the reinstatement of the laid-off workers, wage increases, the establishment of minimum wages, limitation of the shift duration to 8 hours, withdrawal of the military from the mine entrances and replacement of the same by civilian porters, legitimation of trade union representatives and other things. While a battalion of soldiers was climbing into the mountains to El Teniente with the aim of ending the strike by force, the striking workers with women and children, a total of 4,000 people, went into the valley to Rancagua to protest in the city. After about a week of strike, an agreement was reached that resulted in essentially higher wages for the workers and a limited work shift of eight hours.

The dead in the fire disaster of 1944 were buried in Rancagua in the presence of 25,000 people.

Over time there have been several major disasters in El Teniente. Avalanches, earthquakes and industrial accidents cost many people their lives and cause considerable damage. Due to its location in the mountains, the plant and the settlements were repeatedly endangered by avalanches and landslides.

In 1928, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake broke the dam of a sedimentation basin into which the muddy residues from mineral processing were discharged. Four million cubic meters of mud with a mass of 27 million tons leaked, made its way into the valley and flowed into the Río Coya. Several bridges, including a railway bridge, the Barahona train station and the factory settlement in Coya, were destroyed. There were 54 dead. Between 1906 and 1966 there were 11 E avalanche accidents in El Teniente, which resulted in a total of 197 deaths. The worst disaster occurred on the evening of August 8, 1944 in Sewell. Two avalanches destroyed several residential buildings, a school, a section of the railway line and a bridge. 102 workers, women and children died. On June 19, 1945, a warehouse in an underground workshop was set on fire. Smoke and carbon monoxide spread throughout the pit. There were 355 deaths, almost a third of the workers on the shift.

nationalization

The surpluses of the foreign capital controlled copper mines in Chile were exorbitant compared to the rest of the economic output in Chile. By the early 1970s, the four major US mining companies generated $ 10.8 billion over the course of 60 years, while the Chilean national wealth generated over 400 years had been estimated at $ 10.5 billion. Although nationalization was called for at an early stage and from time to time, the Chilean state limited itself to income through taxes for a long time. Around 20 years after the start of operations in El Teniente, the mining surpluses were subject to an additional 6% tax for the first time in 1925. The taxes then rose to more than 50% by 1945. In May 1951 it was temporarily agreed that 20% of copper production would be made available to the Chilean state.

With a changing political situation, a partial nationalization took place, called " chilenización " (Chileanization). Under the government of Eduardo Frei Montalva , a law (1966 Ley 16,425)} was passed that allowed the establishment of mining companies with mixed participation by private and state shareholders. Then on April 13, 1967 the Sociedad Minera El Teniente SA was founded in which the Braden Copper Company was merged. The Chilean state acquired 51% of the shares and Kennecott Corporation retained 49%. The capital of the new company was $ 160 million. Taxes on El Teniente were set at 20% and the dividends from Kennecott's 49% stake were set at an additional 30%. The Chilean government funded a production increase program that would increase daily capacity from 36,000 tons in 1968 to 62,500 tons by 1971. Over the course of three years, $ 237 million has been invested in modernization and construction measures. This made El Teniente the world's largest underground copper mine.

In order to reduce operating costs, a start was made to dissolve the El Teniente factory settlements in the mountains and to relocate the staff with the families to Rancagua. In the autumn of 1969, the first 1,092 houses in Rancagua were completed and in the same year began to dismantle Sewell and Caletones. This was made possible by the expansion of an asphalt road, the Carretera del Cobre (span: copper road). It connects Rancagua with Nueva Colon and has branches to Coya and Caletones. The workers could now be brought by bus from Rancagua to Nueva Colon. Such a bus trip only took an hour. From there it went on for 9 km with a railway that led through tunnel N ° 8 to the base of the pit near Sewell.

President Allende on July 11, 1971 in Rancagua on the occasion of the nationalization of El Teniente.

In July 1971, under the government of Salvador Allende , the major copper producers were nationalized. (ley 17,459) El Teniente had a book value of $ 99.5 million, on the basis of which investors should have been compensated. From this value $ 410 million was deducted, which was regarded as so-called excessive profits - this meant profits that exceeded 10% of the book value - and was calculated for the period from 1955 onwards. So it was initially nationalization without compensation. Unlike the previous “chilenización”, this time the mining company changed from a “load-bearing beam of Chile”, as it was classified, to an enormous social burden. An impressive 147 thousand tons of copper were produced, but a deficit of 18 million US dollars was generated, money that had to be raised by the central bank. A US embargo, rising production costs, insufficient processing and collapsing copper prices meant that hardly any surpluses were generated in the two following years. Until 1973, raw materials containing 52 kilotons of fine copper had accumulated in the El Teniente plant. After the military coup on September 11, 1973 , copper production picked up again. The value of the Chilean copper deposits was put at 200 billion US dollars and at that time corresponded to 21.5% of the known world deposits. With the prospect of consistently high revenues, the military government was not interested in reversing the nationalization of big industry. In October 1974 the Kennecott Copper Corporation was compensated for the expropriated shares in El Teniente and for the dividends that had not been paid since the beginning of 1971 with a total of 68 million US dollars. El Teniente thus remained state property. Today the mine is operated by the Codelco División El Teniente company based in Rancagua. This is a subsidiary of the state holding Codelco, founded in 1976 .

statistics

El Teniente - mine
-year results
year Employee Copper
kt		 Molybdenum
kt		 Silver
t		 Gold
kg		 Sulfuric acid
kt		 Surplus
million dollars
2015 4750 471 7.33 102.7 853 1183 624
2014 4921 455 7.50 96.7 803 1191 931
2013 5064 450 6.86 92.0 786 1214
2012 5079 417 6.1 82.8 738 1215 1211
2011 4975 400 6.0 81.8 781 1188 1404
2010 5430 404 5.6 1141
2009 404 5.18
2008 381 4.58
2007 405 5.05
2006 418 4.75
2005 4976 437 5.25
2004 436 3.92
2003 339 3.51
2002 334 3.90
2001 356 4.72
2000 356 5.19
1999 346 4.24
1998 339 3.39
1997 343 3.18
1996 345 2.65
1995 323 2.03
1994 309 2.24
1993 305 2.01
1983 9068
1971 147 -18
1970 115
1969 13000 206 168
1967 201
1966 160
1965 163
1960 5200 170
1958 192
1944 150
1942 9000
1934 115
1931 100
1921 10
1918 35
1917 29 6.34
1916 32
1913 9.5
1912 4.8
1911 4.5
1910 4.5
1908 1.5
1906-07 3.2 *
( * copper ore concentrate)

Total mineral extraction from 1906 to May 1961: 300 megatons of mineral.
Total copper production from 1906 to 1999: 15.71 megatons of fine copper.
Total copper production from 1906 to 2015: 22.45 megatons of fine copper.

Web links

Commons : El Teniente  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ 86.4 megatons of fine copper from mineral with more than 0.2% copper content and 13.2 megatons of fine copper from deeper layers or overburden and other things.
  2. ↑ For the person see: Reseña Biográfica Parlamentaria Enrique Concha y Toro
  3. ↑ For the person see: Historia de Chile: Biografías. William Braden Burford: 1871-1942
  4. ^ For the Guggenheim family see: Meyer Guggenheim and Spiegel 1978: Millionär, Liebe Im Gold-Salon
  5. ↑ The management consisted of Solomon R. Guggenheim (President), Edgard I. Newhouse (Vice President), Chas. K. Lipman (treasurer), GF Hilton (secretary) and 12 directors: Murry Guggenheim, William Braden, Eugene Meyer , Messmore Kendall, JE Bainberg, Karl Eilers, Simon Guggenheim , Harry F. Guggenheim , Edmond A. Guggenheim, JK Mac- Gowan, Leopold Fredrik, EA Cappelen Smith.
  6. ↑ Ministerio de Hacienda, Decree No. 1854, issued April 29, 1905, published in the Diario Oficial on May 23, 1905.
  7. ↑ The Braden Copper Co. Rancagua Chile SA was registered in the Chilean commercial register on January 29, 1906.
  8. ↑ Fortuna is a common name for mines.
  9. ↑ For the Kennecott company, see: Kennecott Corporation History Lehman Brothers Collection Kennecott Coper Corporation Río Tinto, Kennecott Our History
  10. ^ Convenio de Washington (span: Washington Agreement), signed May 9, 1951. Sets the copper price for sales in the United States at 27.5 US cents. The Chilean state may dispose of 20% of the national copper production and sell it freely, worldwide except in the Eastern Bloc.

Footnotes

A.The indigenous population of the region was already mining copper in El Teniente when the Spanish conquistadors invaded Chile in the 16th century. The Spaniards were mostly not interested in copper and so the occurrence was almost ignored. In the 18th century the Jesuit order was the owner of the area where the mine is today. The hacienda La Compañía belonged to the order and reached in the west from the coastal cordillera near Graneros to the Andes in the east to today's Argentine border. Although the colonial mining industry was mostly only interested in gold and silver, and the resulting disregard for copper deposits, the Jesuits secured the mining rights here. The Jesuits were expelled in 1767 and their expropriated property was auctioned off. In 1771 Mateo de Toro y Zambrano bought the hacienda. Years later, around 1777, he began mining copper ores in “La Fortuna”. The ore with a content of 10% copper was brought to the coast by mules and shipped to England. Because that turned out to be not very lucrative, the operation of the mine was given up again after a short time. It should stay that way for a few generations. The heir José Gregorio de Toro y Valdés in turn bequeathed the mine to his niece Nicolasa de Toro y Dumont, who later brought it as a dowry to her marriage to Juan de Dios Correa Saa, who (1819) (1823/24) then started mining again recorded. Juan de Dios Correa Saa is considered to be the first mine operator on the El Teniente deposit. A number of mines were operated by tenants or business partners. In 1850 the Los Perales smelter was built northeast of the confluence of the Coya and the Cachapoal.

In 1870, Federico Gana, an engineer who had studied in Freiberg , became Correa Saa's business partner. He created the "Socavón N ° 1", consisting of a 100 m deep tunnel, winch, caserón and a wooden slide over which the mineral was guided to the nearby mountain lakes.

In 45 years, up to the death of Juan de Dios Correa Saa in 1876, an estimated 50,000 tons of painstakingly selected minerals containing 10% copper were obtained. Most of it came from La Fortuna, which drowned and was abandoned in 1875 . In 1897, engineer Enrique Concha y Toro, a wealthy and daring mining entrepreneur, began exploiting the La Fortuna, Capitana and Subteniente mines. He was neither an heir nor did he have permission from the heirs for his company. He applied for the mining rights for the area, which were probably awarded to him due to a lack of cadastre and inefficient justice. The heirs began a lawsuit against him that ended in a settlement in 1900. For a moderate purchase price, he acquired a third of their rights from the heirs and was able to continue working in the El Teniente mine.
B.Pueblo Hundido (Spanish for: Sunken Village) ( 34 ° 5 ′  S , 70 ° 21 ′  W ) in 1915, 1200 people lived there in winter and 2000 in summer. Like other early, more or less well planned and mostly precarious factory settlements at the mine, Pueblo Hundido was abandoned again by 1922. The Pueblo Hundido, better known due to the photographs published at the time, is today, including the associated operating facilities, largely buried by natural and operational landslides. There are only a few visible remains of the wall that Chilean archaeologists consider relatively insignificant and not worthy of preservation.
C.Hydroelectric power plant in Coya, completed in 1910 with an output of 22 MW. Today operated by PacificHydro Chile
D.El Teniente railway dates: inauguration September 17, 1911; operated with steam locomotives; Track 76 cm; greatest gradient 4.58%, narrowest curve 23 m, 9 train stations: Rancagua (km 0; 513 m), Fuenzalida (km 17; 643 m), Baños (km 27; 900 m), Coya (km 31; 950 m) , La Isla (km 32; 1008 m), Sapos (km 58; 1765 m), Copado (km 61; 1842 m), La Junta (km 71.9; 2134), Sewell (km 72; 2139 m) 1972 or Closed in 1978
E. 1906, 1907, 1912, 1913, 1914 (21 people buried), 1921, 1926 (0 dead, Rebolledo Bridge destroyed), 1930, 1941 (Rebolledo Bridge destroyed, damage to houses), 1944 (102 dead; Rebolledo Bridge and Houses destroyed), 1966 (July 12, 3 dead)

Individual evidence

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