Extracting the full potential

We’re a company that acts very quickly and takes advantage of opportunities very quickly. And we’re not satisfied only with what we have – we look to keep expanding the resources, because this is what increases the value of the company.

A great value opportunity

I'm Manager of Technical Services at the Las Bambas copper project. I was working at Minera Alumbrera in Argentina when, in 2006, the opportunity came up to acquire BHP Billiton’s Tintaya mine in southern Peru. Why was Xstrata interested in Tintaya? Since 2004, Xstrata had been exploring the Las Bambas project and Tintaya provided an opportunity for us to build a resource base in southern Peru. Tintaya was also an operating mine and Las Bambas a future operation, so this was a good opportunity to have two operations at different stages of their lives.

“We keep looking to expand the resources because this increases the value of the company.”

At Xstrata, when you want to evaluate a deposit, a project or an operation, you include people from different functions and across the world. So we formed a diverse group of different specialties from Xstrata Copper units worldwide - Australia, Peru and Alumbrera in Argentina. We recommended acquiring Tintaya, our Chief Executive Charlie Sartain approved it, and we won it.

A quick payback

Tintaya was an operation with a mining production limit to 2016, and we saw opportunities to expand because of deposits around the mine. We also acquired the possibility to develop a new operation at the nearby Antapaccay deposit. It looked like an interesting deposit and the geological evaluation suggested many possibilities for expanding the resources.

Exploration drilling lasted from late 2006 to mid-2008 at Antapaccay, and resources increased from 400 million to 800 million tonnes. We are continuing to drill in Antapaccay, searching for more resources, because we know that the deposit has the potential to be more than 1,000 million tonnes.

In 2009 we conducted the Environmental Impact Study, which was approved, and in 2010 we began construction. We’re an enterprising company that takes advantage of opportunities very quickly. We’re not satisfied with what we have; we keep looking to expand the resources because this increases the value of the company.