Chuquicamata copper mine is located in the north of Chile, 15 km north of Calama and 230 km northeast of Antofagasta.

As part of the upgrade of the existing conventional Tailings Storage Facility (TSF) at Talabre to a Central Thickened Discharge (CTD) Scheme, we were engaged to undertake a basic engineering design of the High Compression (HC) / High Density (HD) thickener underflow transport to the TSF.

The thickened tailings scheme comprises 12 thickeners. The thickener underflow is pumped to the Talabre TSF from a pump station located at the thickener platform via 4 pipelines installed on two earthfill ramps (2 pipes on each ramp). The tailings are discharged from the end of the two ramps using a distribution system to form two separate central thickened tailings stacks (cones).

The pump station receives tailings from the following three sources and has to accommodate tonnage ranges between 23.4 ktpd to 426.8 ktpd:

• Chuquicamata –CH (under Operation).
• Ministro Hales-MH (under Commissioning).
• Radomiro Tomic –RT (at Design Phase).

Each tonnage scenario required analyses for 3 different solids contents, namely 64.5%, 67% and 68.5%.

The scope of work for the project included, design of the pump station and pipelines for transport of highly viscous thickened tailings at 68% solids (fully sheared yield stress up to 110 Pa) with a total flow rate of between 2,600 to 17,000 m³/hr, pipeline access ramps and extension, distribution system at the stack, thickened tailings beach modelling and development over time.