Codelco's Chuquicamata and Anglo American's Mantos Blancos are buying crushing equipment from Metso Minerals. Codelco is taking two HP800 cone crushers, which will be used to crush oversized pebbles at its sulphur plant and a new tertiary facility is being set up for these new machines. Throughput for the HP800s ranges from 370 tph for a 10-mm feed up to 1,320 tph for a 51-mm feed. Chuquicamata already has five crushing and screening lines, one of which is being revamped at present with the installation of a Nordberg MP1000 secondary crusher and three F900 screens.

The LT125 mobile crushing plant Anglo American is buying for its Mantos Blancos mine will be used in a novel way - to crush ROM low-grade copper ore. It is expected to process some 15 million tonnes of ore over the next five years. The machine is being used with the intention of improving copper recovery from the leaching of the ROM ore from 40-60%. Metso says that it won the order because this mobile machine offered lower operating costs than comparable stationary equipment, as well as a quicker start-up time and the fact that it does not require double loading techniques. Mobile crushing plants like the LT125 tend to be used more often in quarrying applications and are not common sights in large copper mining applications however. It will be interesting if other mining operations adopt Mantos Blancos' strategy of using mobile crushers in this way.

Metso Minerals has a