The Cerro Colorado porphyry copper deposit is the northernmost currently active copper mine in Chile. It belongs to one of the Paleocene to early Eocene porphyry copper deposits that are distributed along the western slope of the main Andean Cordillera in Northern Chile.

The geological evolution of Cerro Colorado area can be generalized as follows. The Cretaceous Cerro Empexa Formation, consisting of a sequence of volcanic rocks, mainly andesitic lava and breccia, lahars, some ignimbrite intercalations and dacitic tuff, was intruded by tonalitic to dioritic magma in Middle-Eocene.

The Spence porphyry copper deposit is related to three stocks of dacitic porphyries and tourmaline-bearing hydrothermal breccias, which were emplaced in andesitic volcanic rocks of the Upper Cretaceous–Lower Tertiary. Laser 40Ar/39Ar plateau ages in magmatic biotites of preand post mineralization dacitic stocks show evidence that hypogene mineralization (chalcopyrite, pyrite, molybdenite, and lesser amounts of bornite and tennantite) occurred between 56 and 57 Ma.

Spence and Cerro Colorado are comprised of open pit mines. At these mines, overburden is removed after blasting, using a truck and shovel.

Open-cut Enriched and oxidised porphyry copper deposit containing in situ copper oxide mineralisation that overlies a near-horizontal sequence of supergene sulphides.

Spence and Cerro Colorado are comprised of open pit mines, sulphide and oxide leaching processes and SX-EW1 plants.

Processing and crushing facilities, separate dynamic (on-off) leach pads, solvent extraction plant, electrowinning plant:

– 82 trucks operating at a benchmark performance of ~6,000 hours annually
– dynamic leach pads at both operations
– water and power supply secured until end of life for current leaching operations