Buenavista del Cobre Concentradora No. 2 (ES)
The Buenavista del Cobre Concentradora No. 2 project is a copper-molybdenum deposit in the northern-central part of the State of Sonora, Mexico, about 155 miles (250 kilometers) northeast of Hermosillo, and 27 miles (45 kilometers) south of the US border. The deposit is mined by open pit methods.
M3 provided engineering, purchasing and construction management (EPCM) services to expand and develop the existing Buenavista mine facilities and infrastructure. The new facilities include a complete copper concentrator and moly circuit that process 100,000 Metric Tons per Day (MTPD) of copper-molybdenum ore, and produce 1,500 MTPD of copper concentrate and approximately 12 MTPD of moly concentrate. The plant reached full production mid-year of 2015.
The new concentrator is a conventional crushing circuit which consists of a gyratory primary, secondary and tertiary crushing circuit that feeds 6 ball mills and a copper-moly flotation, thickening and filtering circuit. M3 is currently working on an optimization and expansion project to process 120,000 MTPD.
The 4 primary crusher building is a unique installation in that it integrates the 2 primary crushers for the concentrator with the 2 primary crushers for the leachable ore system under one common structure.
Construction of Concentradora No. 2 posed various challenges which included minimizing disruption to the existing processing plant, coordinating with its current operations team, and dealing with the numerous on-going capital, maintenance and infrastructure improvements throughout the property.
EPCM services were directed by M3’s staff working closely with the Owners personnel to achieve efficient and orderly implementation of the Project. M3 was responsible for management and control of the various project activities and ensuring that the team had appropriate resources to accomplish the Owner’s objectives.
