Being a good neighbour: The story of Los Bronces
Few mines lie adjacent to 7 million people.
By Rohitesh Dhawan, President & CEO, ICMM.
Yet, the iconic Los Bronces mine holds universal lessons in being a good neighbour; something that every miner owes their communities, near or far.
Located 65 kilometres east of downtown Santiago, ICMM member Anglo American’s Los Bronces is one of the world’s largest copper mines, holding 2% of the world’s known copper resources.
Although Anglo American has operated it for 40 years, the mine was first established in 1867. As Santiago grew around it, Los Bronces now sits between one of the city’s wealthiest neighbourhoods on one side and ski-friendly mountains on the other.
This creates unique challenges for mine and residents alike. There’s a single access road shared by cars, cyclists and trucks. Even with a pipeline to transport the mine’s ore to its processing facilities, mine-traffic is not only a nuisance for residents, but can be a danger too. Tragically, a teenager lost his life in an accident with a mining vehicle a few years ago.
Today, Anglo American operates one of the most advanced safety systems on all its vehicles, including in-cabin fatigue monitoring, remote sensing and strict speed control systems. This adds cost and complexity, but there’s simply no trade-off with risks to human life.
That’s a key driver for another innovation; autonomous trucks. While these giant self-driving vehicles are increasingly common at newly designed mines, Los Bronces is unique in retrofitting this technology in a 150 year old site. About a third of its fleet of 60 trucks is already autonomous with more in the works, leading to improved safety, lower fuel use, and better efficiency.
The semi-arid environment produces a linked challenge; dust. Alongside advanced dust suppression systems at the mine, Los Bronces offsets 150% of its dust emissions, far beyond the legal requirement. The mine’s commitment to improving air quality and the surrounding environment goes further; donating 8000 hectares for a national park, restoring a further 11,000 hectares, developing a blue carbon initiative, and supporting Chile’s national green hydrogen strategy are just some of the additional steps taken.
While these lie outside the mine’s boundary, responsible production is at the heart of the operations itself. As the second largest consumer of electricity in the Metropolitan region after the metro, the 200MW of power consumed by Los Bronces is 100% renewable.
94% of the water used at site is recycled and soon it will stop using any freshwater. The desalination plant under construction will not only supply the mine but also provide water for 35,000 community members in the first phase, with several thousands more in future phases as the mine transitions to using treated greywater.
These environmental commitments sit alongside an extraordinary social commitment. Los Bronces has committed to creating 3 jobs for every 1 job on site, rising to 5 over time. This spirit led to the company committing to zero job losses when automating part of Los Bronces’ operations through its extraordinary Integrated Remote Operating Centre (IROC) in Santiago. And when faced with the choice of increasing capacity at this centre to serve another mine, El Soldado, it opted instead to create a whole new centre in the immediate vicinity of that mine—at greater cost, to create local jobs and stimulate the regional economy.
Collectively, these and other initiatives make Los Bronces one of the most responsibly operated mines in the world; something that the citizens of Santiago rightly demand and deserve from their mining neighbour. Yet, the best may be yet to come.
Los Bronces shares a boundary (and the same copper deposit) with another mine called Andina operated by fellow ICMM member Codelco. The two companies have agreed to build a joint mine plan across the two operations, which will unlock an additional 2.7 million tonnes of copper supply over the next 2 decades. Not only is this positive for a world short of this critical metal, but it means no significant additional mining infrastructure or footprint, sparing communities the inevitable accompanying impacts and risks.
With many mines similarly co-located across the Andean region and worldwide, this could be a model for future collaboration that unlocks supply of critical minerals and maximises social value while minimising the footprint of mining.
Being a good neighbour is something we all strive for, personally and professionally. How extraordinary then, that a mine dating back to the 19th century located close to the heart of one of the world’s largest cities is showing us the way in these modern times.
