The Cerro Verde mine is a porphyry copper deposit that has oxide and secondary sulfide mineralization, and primary sulfide mineralization. The predominant oxide copper minerals are brochantite, chrysocolla, malachite and copper “pitch.” Chalcocite and covellite are the most important secondary copper sulfide minerals. Chalcopyrite and molybdenite are the dominant primary sulfides.

The available fleet consists of forty-five 290-metric ton haul trucks and ninety-three 230-metric ton haul trucks loaded by twelve electric shovels with bucket sizes ranging in size from 33 to 57 cubic meters and two hydraulic shovels with a bucket size of 21 cubic meters. This fleet is capable of moving an average of approximately 1,050,000 metric tons of material per day.

Cerro Verde’s operation consists of an open-pit copper mine, a 409,500 metric ton-per-day concentrator, and SX/EW leaching facilities. Leach copper production is derived from a 39,000 metric ton-per-day crushed leach facility and a 100,000 metric ton-per-day ROM leach system. This SX/EW leaching operation has a capacity of approximately 200 million pounds of copper per year.

The original concentrator design included the use of High Pressure Grinding Rolls (HPGRs) for tertiary comminution, which was the first base metal concentrator to use HPGR technology. The materials handling system involves primary and secondary crushers, HPGR units and crushing, mill grinding, screening, and conveying systems. Copper recovery is achieved with multistage flotation technology with regrinding of middling products. Fluor, having successfully designed and built the original, 108,000 tpd Cerro Verde C1 (debottlenecked to 120,000 tpd) copper/molybdenum concentrator in 2007.

The 240,0 ........