Carmen de Andacollo

Carmen de Andacollo is an open-pit copper mine in northern Chile next to the town of Andacollo and about 40 km southeast of the port city of Coquimbo. Teck Resources owns 90% of the mine while state-owned ENAMI owns the rest.^[1] The mine opened in 1996.^[1] In 2023 it produced 39,600 metric tons of copper concentrate.^[1] The ore mined belongs to the hypogene zone of the orebody.^[2]

The concentration of property to establish a large mine begun 1975 when Augusto Pinochet gave permission to ENAMI to purchase surface real estate from the inhabitants of Andacollo.^[3] Businessman Andrónico Luksic resisted the purchase of his property and he eventually acceded for a swap for a mining property in Los Pelambres.^[4] The mine property was put to into an international tender for a company willing to form a joint venture with ENAMI.^[4] Noranda Mines showed some interest but ultimately declined. A tender in 1990 ended in a similar maner with Placer Dome showing interest before declining.^[4] In 1994 after a new tender a joint venture of Carbon Tungsten and Compañía Minera del Pacífico (CMP) accepted the conditions of ENAMI, beginning the modern mine.^[5] At this point the ownership of the mining company Compañía Minera Carmen de Andacollo was as follows; Carbon Tungsten (63%), CMP (27%) and ENAMI (10%), with CMP itself being a joint-venture of steelmaking CAP and ENAMI.^[5][6] Production begun in 1994.^[7]

Soon, 63% of shares passed from Carbon Tungsten to Aur Resources, which years later in late 2006 increased its shares to 90% after purchasing them from CMP.^[8][6] In 2007 Aur Resources was purchased by Teck Cominco.^[5][7]

• Danús, Hernán (2007). "V. La geología y las exploraciones mineras". Crónicas mineras de medio siglo (1950-2000) (in Spanish). Santiago de Chile: RIL Editores. ISBN 978-956-284-555-7.