High yield and safety in the Andes

Surrounded by sand-colored mountain peaks, El Teniente lies 2,100 meters above sea level and about 100 kilometers south of Santiago. The area is vast, and the car trip from the main gate to the mine’s opening takes more than an hour via winding roads.

El Teniente has a long history with the first copper ore being mined on an industrial scale in 1905. Since the early 1970s, the mine has been run by the state-owned mining company Codelco, and today, the company has over 3,800 employees with operations ongoing 24/7.

“We are one of the largest underground mines in the world, producing 140,000 tons of extracted ore every day. El Teniente’s mining operations are massive, and we are using both block and panel caving processes,” says Rodrigo Andrades, Mine Manager. 

How El Teniente’s geotechnical complexity breeds innovation

El Teniente consists of several operations located at different levels. Underground there is virtually an entire town with offices, maintenance workshops, warehouses and cafeterias for food services, among other things. The underground surface area is 385,000 m², and the countless mining passageways cover 4,500 kilometers throughout the mountain.

“This is one of the most complex mines in geotechnical terms worldwide. People from around the world come to us to see how we can utilize these immense complexities that we have,” says Rodrigo Andrades.

The geotechnical challenges in El Teniente have led Codelco to become an early adopter of innovative automation technologies. The company has long had a close partnership with Sandvik, and already in 2004, the first automation solution was implemented in El Teniente. 

The many benefits and possibilities of mining via remote control

A ten-minute drive from the mine’s ADIT-71 entrance, is Pacífico Superior, an area of the mine that has come the furthest with automation. Here production with Sandvik’s autonomous trucks and loaders is around 13,500 tons per day. 

Operator Luis Rodrigo Merchant has just started his shift. From the control room, he and the other operators remotely monitor the four Toro™ LH621 loaders and four Toro™ TH663 trucks that tirelessly load and transport the ore some hundred meters away. While the trucks are fully automated and only monitored via the screens, there is one moment where, due to the changing nature of the muck pile, the loaders still need the assistance of a skilled operator like Luis Rodrigo Merchant: for bucket filling.

However, the difference from a fully manual equipment is huge. Seated in a comfortable operator’s chair, he uses a joystick to fill the bucket, far from the noisy and dusty environment that is typical in underground mining tunnels.

“I have been an operator for 17 years. Having driven manually for most of that time, I started working with Sandvik automation a few years ago. The difference to my quality of life is huge; the biggest advantages of automation for me are that I can do my job in an ergonomic chair and avoid the risks that noise and dust entail,” says Luis Rodrigo Merchant.

“Implementing Sandvik AutoMine® in Diablo Regimiento has helped us to prolong its production life and to have an extraction process that is both safe and efficient. To date, we have recovered over a million tons of material that was previously captive there, given the high risks. Thanks to automation, the operators can manage the equipment safely without being exposed to pollutants and vibrations,” says Francisco Castro, Unit Head Diablo Regimiento Mine.

The future of mining

Sandvik is one of the largest providers of equipment, service, and digital solutions in El Teniente, and the company has skilled personnel on-site around the clock to offer lifecycle support solutions to seamlessly uphold Codelco’s day-to-day activities and ensure continuous operational efficiency. Additionally, Sandvik and Codelco have a very close strategic collaboration at all levels, and the autonomous solutions now being implemented in the mine are unique.

“Sandvik and Codelco have the same mining philosophy and have a strong focus on safety and reliability, increased production levels and reduced costs. We both believe that the key success factors for future mining are automation, digitalization, and electrification,” says Emilio Vega, Business Line Manager at Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions. “Safety considerations include how people can be removed from hazardous environments as well as gaining more productivity by operating during shift change.”

The second phase of this contract, which covers 2024 through to 2027, includes seven additional Toro™ LH514s and an expansion for the AutoMine® Fleet system. After delivery, Codelco will have more than 40 autonomous Sandvik trucks and loaders in operation in El Teniente.

“Automation and electrification allows us to build the mine of the future. Sandvik is a strategic partner in this ongoing transformation, and our close and productive collaboration has brought us to where we are today. In a few years, our objective is to have a highly productive and safe mine with no manual equipment at all,” says Martín Galaz, Head of Automation Unit El Teniente Mine.