attn mx-, page-50

HT1 here a thought or two for the conversation

If Escondida is one of the biggest mine in the world.
BHP and Rio which are part owners if they can't even come close to the mine life both have different mines life in mind. So who would you put your faith and trust in? Tom Albanese or Marius Kloppers?
At best I think you should choose the middle between 20 and 27 and considering it has been operating for 20 years already I reckon an 50 year mine life at best. And if Escondida can't make it for 50 let alone 100 then how many other mines in the world could?
How about something approaching zero.
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Escondida

The Minera Escondida copper
mine in Chile’s Atacama Desert,of which we own 30 per cent, is the largest copper mine in the world in terms of annual production, and has a mine life expected to be approximately 20 years. Escondida accounts for approximately eight per cent of world primary copper production. BHP Billiton owns 57.5 per cent of Escondida and is the operator and product sales agent. The Escondida district hosts two of the largest porphyry copper deposit systems in the world, Escondida and Escondida Norte,located five kilometres from Escondida.

And this is from BHP themselves -

Escondida

We hold a 57.5% interest in Escondida, a copper mine consisting of two open-pits accessible by road and located in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert, at an altitude of approximately 3,100 metres, 160 kilometres south-east of the port city of Antofagasta. The other owners are affiliates of Rio Tinto plc, which hold a 30% interest, JECO, which holds a 10% interest, (Mitsubishi Corporation, 7%, Mitsubishi Materials Corporation, 1%, Nippon Mining and Metals Company Limited, 2%), and the International Finance Corporation, which holds a 2.5% interest.

Escondida is a large porphyry copper deposit with current mine dimensions of 2.4 kilometres in an east-west direction, 3.2 kilometres in a north-south direction and a depth of 464 metres. The ultimate pit limits are estimated to be 3.5 kilometres by 4.8 kilometres, with a depth of 750 metres.

Original construction of the operation was completed in 1990 at a cost of US$836 million (100% terms) and the project has since undergone four phases of expansions at an additional cost of US$2,125 million (100% terms) plus US$451 million (100% terms) for the construction of an oxide plant. The operation has two conventional processing streams, with high quality copper concentrate being extracted from sulphide ore through a flotation extraction process and pure copper cathode obtained in a plant applying leaching and subsequent solvent extraction and electro-winning to oxide ores. An open pit mine services both operations, with a current total movement of approximately 375 million tonnes of material each year, while dedicated pipeline and port facilities as well as a private railway are used to transport output.

The Escondida Norte expansion was approved in June 2003, with an investment of US$400 million (100% terms) required to bring Escondida Norte mine into production. In April 2004, the US$870 million (100% terms) Escondida Sulphide Leach copper project was approved. The project has the capacity to produce up to 180,000 tonnes of copper cathode per annum and is scheduled to begin production during the second half of 2006. The project will utilise a bacterially assisted leaching process on low-grade run-of-mine sulphide ore from the existing Escondida pit and the currently in-development Escondida Norte pit. The resulting solutions from the leaching will then be treated in solvent extraction and electro-winning plants to produce copper cathode.

The Escondida mine life is based on the production rate of feed to the combined flotation plants and is currently estimated at 27 years. Escondida Norte will provide a portion of the production to the flotation and sulphide leach plants for 19 years, concurrently with Escondida.