Hilmar Rode, Asset President, Escondida
Escondida 25 Year Celebration
Escondida, Chile, 7 April 2016

Good afternoon everyone.

I’m Hilmar Rode, President of Minera Escondida. I would like to offer you all a warm welcome and thank you sincerely for making the journey to the mine site to be with us today.

Thank you to our shareholders, clients, workers and contractors, our partner organisations in so many initiatives, and the representatives from our neighbouring communities, with whom we work closely to contribute to their development and quality of life.

We are here at the heart of OGP1, our third concentrator plant and the largest one in the world for a single mill line. The main mill is located to the left: the SAG mill.

This plant that we are inaugurating today is the result of a project that required an investment of US$4.2 billion, 60 million labour hours, and 9,200 workers during the peak construction period. This project has been a huge challenge, and it was completed with an excellent safety record.

For many of you, this will be the first time you have visited Escondida, the world’s highest production copper mine.

To give you an idea of the size of Escondida, the concession surface is equivalent to that of the Santiago Metropolitan Region, so the distances between the facilities are enormous. You will see this later when you visit the main pit, which is 650 meters deep. These large scales can also be seen in the capacity of our camps, Villa San Lorenzo and Villa Cerros Alegres, which between them can accommodate 9,616 people.

Some of the former presidents of Escondida are joining us today for this ceremony, as well as many workers who have been with the company from the beginning, all of whom have been leading players in this huge mining achievement we are celebrating today.

Thank you very much to all those who have made it possible to build this chapter of our history.

I hope you enjoy the day. Thank you!