Abstract
The Mantoverde Project, now under construction, is located in northern Chile, 1000 km from Santiago and 40 km from the coast at an altitude of 900 m above sea level. It is a copper oxide orebody with brochantite, chrysocolla and malachite as the main copper minerals. Extensive metallurgical testwork was carried out during the prefeasibility and feasibility studies to define the process. A total of 292 bottle-roll and 71 column tests were carried out at laboratory scale during the prefeasibility study. A pilot plant was constructed to conduct metallurgical studies during the feasibility stage. Leach tests were carried out using boxes (25 tons each) and columns (250 kg each) to simulate commercial heaps. More than 100 box and 200 column tests were done. Particle size, heap height, flowrate and head grade were evaluated. A heap leach-solvent extraction-electrowinning process was selected to treat the Mantoverde ore at a rate of 15,000 tpd to produce 42,000 tpy of cathode copper. The results obtained as well as the design criteria selected for the process are discussed in this paper.
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