The Cuajone deposit is considered to be an example of a porphyry copper–molybdenum deposit.

The deposit is approximately 2,300 m long, 900 m wide, and averages 1000 m in thickness. Mineralization has been drill tested to a depth of 2,255 m. The deposit remains open at depth.

Mineralization and alteration at the Cuajone deposit is directly related to a multi-stage latite porphyry that intrudes basaltic andesites and the overlying 370 m of rhyolite porphyries of the Toquepala Group.

The first, pre-mineral intrusive in the mine area, situated approximately 1–2 km to the west of the deposit, was a north–south-elongated, 0.7 x 0.35 km, grey to grey-green holocrystalline to equigranular, medium grained, porphyritic diorite stock. This was followed by emplacement of three latite porphyry stages, producing a 2.5 x 0.7 km, northwest–southeast-elongated intrusive body. The latite multiphase intrusion hosts the mineralization.

The first magmatic pulse of the latite porphyry was concentrated in the southeastern part of the multiple intrusive mass and was responsible for the introduction of the bulk of the hypogene copper and molybdenite mineralization in the Cuajone orebody and the associated intense alteration of both the latite and surrounding Toquepala Group andesites and rhyolites. The intrusion is a porphyry with phenocrysts of quartz to 4 mm in diameter and laths of feldspar in a cryptocrystalline matrix. Alteration takes the form of a ........

The Cuajone Operations use conventional truck-and-shovel open pit mining methods.

The open pit mine has a circular conical shape with a diameter of approximately 3.0 km. Currently, the highest elevation of the pit walls is on the southeast wall at 3865 masl. The current bottom of the pit is at 2950 masl, while the depth of the final pit design will be at 2590 masl. Nine pit phases remain in the life-of-mine (LOM) plan, starting with phase 6 and ending with phase 10C.

Pit Design Criteria Summary:
Bench height - 15m;
Minimum mining width - 80m;
Ramp width - 40m;
Ramp gradient - 10%;
Geotechnical berm width - 30-40m;

Mining is conducted using two 12-hr shifts. The mining operations can be summarized as:
• Initial drilling and blasting;
• Loading, using shovels, of the blasted material into haul trucks;
• Transport of ore and waste, depending on destination to WRSFs, run-of-mine (ROM) leach deposit, leach crusher, and mill crusher.

The LOM plan assumes that all sulfide ore material goes directly to the mill crusher and all leachable material goes directly to the leach crusher. The point of transfer from mining to processing is at the point of the conveyors or delivery to the leach pad.

Three pit phases will be operational at any one time, to ensure that production rates can be met. A maximum mining capacity per phase of 80 Mt/a is assumed, with a maximum vertical advance rate of 10 benches per year.

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