Innovative Battery Manufacturing Facilities Construction management consultancy for building innovative battery manufacturing facilities in the United States. Bechtel is at the forefront of constructing innovative battery manufacturing facilities in the U.S. Our expert team ensures compliance with local codes and…
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The Bechtel-built mine, one of the largest copper resources, features a first-of-its-kind desalination plant and will operate on 100% renewable energy by 2025.
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Bechtel is delivering one of Australia’s largest infrastructure projects — a state-of-the-art airport designed to handle 10 million passengers annually.
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PROJECTS
Antofagasta Minerals (AMSA) is one of the world’s largest copper producers. We helped our customer to sustain its production level at the Los Pelambres mine in Chile. We worked together to reduce the environmental impact, establish long-term relationships with neighboring communities, promote local socioeconomic development and strengthen the local labor force.
Bechtel built the original copper concentrator at Chile’s Los Pelambres Mine, located approximately 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Santiago, between 1996 and 1999.
In 2001, we returned to add a pebble crusher, and followed that by installing additional conveying, grinding, and flotation equipment.
Bechtel’s fourth Los Pelambres project, the Repower II expansion, increased the concentrator’s capacity by 20 percent from 132,000 metric tons per day to 159,000 metric tons per day.
In early 2019, Bechtel began construction of the INCO MLP project at Los Pelambres, which was inaugurated in March 2024.
The project considered EPC direct hire for a concentrator plant expansion, a desalinated water plant and a water pipeline. Staffing reached nearly 8,000 people during its construction stage.
The concentrator expansion included the addition of a grinding line with a SAG mill and a ball mill, a flotation line and the expansion of the existing stockpile to increase throughput by 40,000 tonnes per day.
The project included a water system with a 106-gallon per second (400 liters per second) desalinated water production system, a 40-mile (65 kilometers) and 24-inch desalinated water transport system with one pumping station and the upgrade of an existing 32-inch reclaim water system.
The scope also included three camps and a 23-kV power line.
One of AMSA’s main focuses is water efficiency, specifically to reduce continental water consumption and increase seawater usage. To transport water from the ocean to the site, Bechtel built a desalination plant and pipeline, a marine intake structure and electrical substations to supply power to the water pipeline. Los Pelambres’ water treatment facilities filter 106 gallons (400 liters) of water per second.
Bechtel’s work at Los Pelambres contributed to fulfilling another of AMSA’s focuses of promoting local employment, achieving that 58 percent of the project’s employees were from the Coquimbo region, where the works were executed. They were joined by numerous local general services, hotels, transport and food companies, which benefited as providers of the project.
The working teams for the original Los Pelambres, Repowering I and II achieved an excellent safety record and earned safety performance honors for contractors completing more than a million job hours without a lost-time incident from Chile’s National Geology and Mining Service (Sernageomin).
INCO MLP team received the Project Management Excellence Award at the 2023 Bechtel Annual Awards ceremony.
This award recognizes a project with superior performance achieved through exemplary project management and outstanding leadership. The project was selected based on project safety and quality, cost, schedule, customer satisfaction, ability to manage complexity, innovation, leadership, and sustainability.
Chile
2024
The Bechtel-built mine, one of the largest copper resources, features a first-of-its-kind desalination plant and will operate on 100% renewable energy by 2025.
Chile
2002
Bechtel provided engineering, procurement, and construction services for the expansion of the world’s largest copper mine, Minera Escondida, completing the job in 2002.
Peru
2015
Bechtel actively partnered with MMG to provide engineering, procurement and construction services for Las Bambas, a greenfield copper concentrator.
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