| Candelaria mine | |
| Pushpin Map: | Chile |
| Coordinates: | -27.4646°N -70.2752°W |
| Place: | Tierra Amarilla, Atacama |
| Subdivision Type: | Region |
| State/Province: | Atacama Region |
| Country: | Chile |
| Owner: | Lundin Mining (80%) Sumitomo Group (20%) |
| Discovery Year: | 1987 (Phelps Dodge) |
| Products: | Copper, gold, silver as concentrate |
| Financial Year: | 2021 |
| Amount: | 151,719 tonnes copper 91,000 ounces gold |
| Opening Year: | 1995 |
The Candelaria mine is a large open pit and underground copper-gold mine located in northern Chile in the Atacama Region. Candelaria has Proven and Probable Reserves of 676 million tonnes of ore grading 0.53% copper, 0.13 g/t gold, and 1.79 g/t silver; containing 3.58 million tonnes of copper, 3.0 million oz of gold and 39 million oz of silver.[1] The mine project incorporates a reverse osmosis plant at the port of Caldera, commissioned in 2013, with a capacity to produce 500 litres per second of desalinated industrial water, piping it 115 km from the Pacific Ocean to the minesite.[2] [3]
The project was operated since discovery in 1987 by Phelps Dodge Corporation, which was taken over by Freeport-McMoRan in 2007. Lundin Mining bought out Freeport's 80% stake in 2014.[4] [5]