Southern Copper Corporation, part of Grupo Mexico, operates Cuajone, one of the largest copper mines in Peru, which could be one of the next major mines in Latin America to deploy autonomous trucks – the company told IM that it is in communication with both Caterpillar and Komatsu ahead of planned trials. However, these trials are still under the consideration of the Chairman’s office.
If they are approved, they would take place in Zone 8 of the mine, which is away from the current active mining area. The initial plan would involve six new autonomous trucks, not retrofits. The company said initially they would not interact with the conventional driver operated trucks. Any official date for the beginning of trials is still pending.
Cuajone operations consist of an open-pit copper mine and a concentrator located in southern Peru, 30 km from the city of Moquegua and 840 kim from Lima, at an altitude of 3,430 m. The Cuajone open pit is about 930 m deep. The plant has an ore milling capacity of 90,000 t/d and the mine achieved 91.7% of that in 2020, or 82,500 t/d. The mine produced 371,837,000 lb of copper for the year, or 168,662 t from 30.11 Mt of ore with a copper grade of 0.666%. It also produced 4,200 t of molybdenum. Total material (ore and waste) mined was 130 Mt.
Traditionally, Cuajone has used both Komatsu and Caterpillar trucks in its fleet including currently 17 290 t Komatsu 930E (of which two are 930E-4SE models) and 10 218 t 830E models as well as 18 Caterpillar 797F 363 t models and six 231 t 793C/793D models, so its experience includes both electric drive and mechanical drive units. The trucks are loaded by two Komatsu P&H 4100, one P&H 4100XPC and one P&H 2800XPB shovels plus three Bucyrus (now Cat) 495 electric shovels of varying bucket sizes.
The trucks feed a thyssenkrupp semi-mobile primary crusher which has a 63 -114 heavy gyratory cwith 1,200 kW direct drive. The crushed ore is extracted from the surge bin underneath the crusher by means of a heavy-duty low speed belt feeder. The 2,800 mm wide ST 1800 conveyor is powered by one 800 kW conventional drive and a variable-frequency drive (VFD). A 400 m long sacrificial conveyor carries the crushed ore from the semi-mobile crushing plant and crusher discharge conveyor to two overland conveyors spanning the 7.5 km distance to the plant coarse ore stockpile. The first of the two overland conveyors is 1,830 mm wide with Continental (PHOENIX) ST6800 belting and runs at 6.2 m/s. It is powered by two 6,000 kW Siemens gearless drives.
