Water Availability
> 18 months of water
Most of Chile’s copper production, including Amerigo’s, comes from drought-prone areas. However, Amerigo uses its water very efficiently. We collect and store surplus water and currently have more than 5 million cubic meters of water reserves. This reserve level is enough for at least 18 months of normal operations.
Amerigo’s multiple water sources include water in the waste material coming to the MVC plant, recirculated water, rainfall, and freshwater obtained through water rights. In recent years, Amerigo has undertaken projects to mitigate its water supply risk. The most recent of these projects was upgrading the plant’s water thickeners to increase water recirculation.
Operational Excellence
103%
Amerigo consistently meets or exceeds its annual operational guidance, which testifies to the skills of the Company’s employees. Amerigo’s outperformance also reflects the simple and proven technology to recover copper. Amerigo’s process is consistent and straightforward, similar to a wastewater treatment plant.
Twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week, for 356 days of the year, the mining tailings stream from Codelco’s El Teniente mine is diverted into Amerigo’s MVC plant. This stream and previously deposited tailings from El Teniente’s past operations are processed at MVC to recover additional copper and molybdenum concentrates that would otherwise be lost. Afterwards, the fully reprocessed material is safely sent to El Teniente’s tailings impoundment facility. Amerigo retains no liability for waste material streams before or after their processing in the MVC plant.
Plant Availability
98.8%
The MVC plant is a highly efficient operation with almost no unplanned shutdown time. Our very high availability rates reflect this. The key is careful coordination with our Codelco partners at the El Teniente copper mine.
One of the most attractive aspects of Amerigo’s relationship with El Teniente is its delivery method for our reprocessing material. Taking advantage of the altitude difference, the waste material from El Teniente to MVC is transported by gravity down a 36 km concrete channel. This is a highly robust, energy-free delivery method. After MVC processes the waste material, it is sent down the same channel, “fueled by gravity,” for another 36 km to El Teniente’s tailings impoundment. We can maximize our number of production days by timing our planned maintenance and other projects to coincide with the downtime at El Teniente for channel maintenance.
Water Efficiency
83% of the water consumed at the MVC plant is reutilized water. Most of this water comes with the fresh waste material from El Teniente, and MVC also has a robust industrial water recovery infrastructure. This unique water supply matrix means that MVC only requires 0.157 cubic meters of water to process one tonne of copper at its plant. Consequently, our water withdrawal (water needed in addition to reutilized water) is only 10 million cubic meters per year.
In recent years, Amerigo has undertaken projects to mitigate its water supply risk. The most recent of these projects was upgrading the plant’s water thickeners to increase water recirculation. These projects have increased our reutilized water availability by 40%, providing an additional 14.5 million cubic meters of water for our plant operations.
Leaders in Safety
Workplace safety is Amerigo’s highest priority. We have achieved an excellent safety record at the MVC plant and continually strive to maintain world-class safety standards. In 2022 our workplace safety ratios included a lost time injury rate of 0.33 (per 200,000 hours) and a total injury rate of 0.33 (per 200,000 hours). It is essential to put this excellent metric into proper perspective. Our MVC plant is a working industrial site, not an office building. We have non-stop operations, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for 356 days of the year.
