Chuquicamata

Chuquicamata (/tʃuːkiːkəˈmɑːtə/ choo-kee-kə-MAH-tə; referred to as Chuqui for short) is the largest open pit copper mine in terms of excavated volume in the world. It is located in the north of Chile, just outside Calama, at 2,850 m (9,350 ft) above sea level. It is 215 km (134 mi) northeast of Antofagasta and 1,240 km (770 mi) north of the capital, Santiago. Flotation and smelting facilities were installed in 1952, and expansion of the refining facilities in 1968 made 500,000 tons annual copper production possible in the late 1970s. Previously part of Anaconda Copper, the mine is now owned and operated by Codelco, a Chilean state enterprise, since the Chilean nationalization of copper in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Its depth of 850 metres (2,790 ft) makes it the second deepest open-pit mine in the world, after Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, United States.

For most of the 20th century Chuquicamata was the most productive copper mine in Chile until this position was overtaken by Escondida in 1996. Chuquicamata remained the 2nd most productive copper mine in Chile until 2011 when it was surpassed by Collahuasi and Radomiro Tomic. As of 2024 it was the fifth most productive copper mine in Chile with a produce that year of 289 kTon copper.

In April 2019 Chuquicamata started to extract minerals from its new underground mine, beginning its transition into an underground operation. While the above-ground mining was estimated to continue at most one and a half year from the start of underground operations, given their incompatibity, by May 2021 above-ground mining remained in place given delays in expanding the underground mine.