The Española project is in the south portion of Candelaria-Punta del Cobre district, 2.5 kilometres southwest from the Candelaria open pit. It occurs in the contact aureole between the Copiapó batholith and sedimentary and volcano-sedimentary rocks of the Chañarcillo Group and the Punta del Cobre Formation in a tectonically depressed block controlled by San Gregorio fault system. The copper mineralization (oxides, sulphides and mixed) is hosted mainly in brown garnet skarn levels and in quartz hornfels in the upper part of the stratigraphic sequence (Abundancia Formation) with mantos characteristics. The main lithological types on surface are assigned to the Abundancia Formation and were affected by different metamorphic processes during emplacement of the Copiapó batholith. In the eastern portion of the area, there is a fault contact with the volcanic and volcanoclastic rocks of the Punta del Cobre Formation. Mineralization In the Española project area, the primary dominant copper sulphide is chalcopyrite found as clusters and in disseminated form commonly associated with brown garnet porphyroblasts. Gangue minerals are pyrite and iron oxides (magnetite-hematite). Near the surface and down to a depth of approximately 70, the mineralization is oxidized, characterized by the presence of chrysocolla, malachite, native copper, diogenite and bornite. The mineralized bodies are arranged as mantos and are hosted mainly in the brown garnet skarn and in less proportion in silic ........

The Española project is a new addition to the Mineral Reserves in the Candelaria District. The deposit will be exploited using open pit mining methods similar to those currently applied at the Candelaria open pit.

The Española project is considered to contain medium to low grade ore. Its most important contribution to the mining plan will be associated with the replacement of ore from low-grade stockpiles previously scheduled for processing.

The ore extraction rate will be variable. For the purposes of pit optimization, a mining rate of 50 kilotonnes per day was assumed at Española.

Primary loading units in ore and waste will be Caterpillar 6040 and 6020 backhoes.

The current Española project design parameters:

•Bench face angle BFA: 70 degrees.
•Inter-ramp ISA gap angle: 48 degrees.
•Width of BW berm: 8.6metres.
•Bench Height: 16metres.
•Ramp width: 35 metres.

Run-of-mine ore is trucked to a primary gyratory crusher. The crushed product is transported using an overland conveyor belt to a coarse ore stockpile with a total capacity of 500,000 tonnes. Semiautogenous grinding mills are followed by ball mills with crushing of the SAG mill generated pebbles. A portion of the crushed pebbles are sent to a dedicated grinding mill, with the remainder retuned to the SAG mills. The ball mills are operated in closed-circuit with hydrocyclones ahead of flotation.

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