Escondida Mine
Antofagasta Region, Chile · built 1990
Escondida is a large open-pit copper mine at 3,100 m (10, 200 ft) elevation in the Atacama Desert in Antofagasta Region, Chile. It has for decades been one of world's most productive copper mines and is the mine that leads in copper and gold production in Chile. In 2019 it was estimated that the mine and its ancillary industries generated 2.5% of Chile's GDP. The mine's produce is largely exported to China as ore concentrate that contained as of 2020 an estimate of 4% chalcopyrite, 35% chalcocite and 46% pyrite. As of 2024 Escondida has each year been the most productive copper mine in Chile since 1996 more than doubling the produce of the next largest mine, Collahuasi, in four of the last ten years up to 2024.
Mine data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).