Codelco’s Board of Directors approved in its last session to materialise the long-awaited desalination plant project for its Chuquicamata, Radomiro Tomic and Ministro Hales copper mines in the Calama area. The plant will be located on the coast south of Tocopilla and represents a key milestone in the company’s commitment to move towards green mining and sustainability.
The consortium, made up of the companies Marubeni Corporation and Transelec, will be in charge of developing the works for the plant and its pumping systems, which will start operations in three more years. The development and execution of the plant – whose construction will begin this year – is a necessary step towards a sustainable supply for the Northern District, which will allow it to face the challenges imposed by water scarcity, maximise operational stability and reach one of the Codelco’s commitments to sustainable development by 2030.
This goal aims to reduce the unit consumption of continental water by 60%, through the combination of an improvement in the efficiency of operating processes, the reuse of water from tailings and the incorporation of the desalination plant for the Northern District.
“We know how urgent it is for our country that the large copper mining industry stop using continental water for its processes, so this long-awaited step of building a desalination plant in the north is a fundamental contribution for Chile. In times of climate change and water crisis, we are proud to start this project that demonstrates our commitment to move quickly to be recognised as a sustainable company,” said the Chairman of the Board, Máximo Pacheco.
The project involves an investment of more than US$1,000 million and the employment of up to 2,700 people at the peak of the three-year construction period, which will especially benefit the local communities and citizens of Tocopilla, María Elena and Calama. It will be executed under a BOOT (Build, Own, Operate and Transfer) business model, where the consortium will build, own and operate the plant, and then transfer it to Codelco.
The copper company explained that it awarded the contract to the main companies that had submitted the best offer in the previous process, a tender that was cancelled in December 2019 to adjust the project to the new definitions of the state company’s mining plan, incorporate the distribution network of water from the reservoir in Radomiro Tomic to the other divisions in Calama, and ensure compliance with Codelco’s demanding standards of probity and transparency.
The project will be a sustainable and cutting-edge technological solution based on the design of a desalination plant that will operate by reverse osmosis, with an initial capacity of 840 litres per second and with the potential to expand to 1,956 litres per second. The plant, which will be located south of Tocopilla, includes maritime works and a water delivery system that will run more than 160 kilometres with pipes. The electrical infrastructure will pump it to more than 3,000 m of height until it reaches the industrial water reservoir for the supply of desalinated water in the Northern District.
