Producer
Antofagasta plc
Chilean-focused copper miner (Luksic group); built the Los Pelambres and Centinela seawater desalination plants and high-altitude water pipelines to run Atacama mines.
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Los Pelambres Mine
48%Centinela Mine
32%Antucoya & Other Chilean Operations
10%Transport Division (FCAB Railway)
10%
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Did you know2024
The copper concentrate that Antofagasta ships from Los Pelambres and Centinela to Asian and European smelters ultimately becomes refined copper cathode that simultaneously feeds: EV motor windings (a single Tesla Model 3 uses ~83 kg of copper), power grid transmission cables (the US grid requires ~500,000 tonnes/year of copper wire), and ammunition brass cases (70/30 brass — 70% copper, 30% zinc — is the standard cartridge case alloy for small arms ammunition). The same Chilean copper mine that feeds the US electrical grid buildout for EV charging infrastructure also feeds the brass mills that supply ammunition to US military and civilian markets. Both defense procurement and clean energy infrastructure compete for refined copper from the same Atacama deposits — the energy transition and defense readiness share a single mine.
Antofagasta PLC ↗Origin2024
Antofagasta PLC's corporate origin runs directly through one of the most consequential territorial wars in South American history. In 1872, Englishman William Gibbs and Chilean investors formed the Antofagasta Nitrate and Railway Company to exploit Atacama Desert nitrate deposits — then on land claimed by Bolivia. Chile's victory in the War of the Pacific (1879-1884) seized the Antofagasta region from Bolivia, stranding Bolivia as a permanently landlocked country without Pacific coast access. The FCAB railway (Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia), now a segment of Antofagasta PLC, was built during this era and remains the only rail connection between Bolivia's interior and the Pacific Ocean. Antofagasta PLC — controlled by the Chilean Luksic family — therefore simultaneously operates one of Chile's largest copper mines on territory that was Bolivian 145 years ago, and owns the railroad that Bolivia depends on for ocean access, creating a peculiar arrangement where a Chilean mining company is the freight logistics custodian for its historical adversary's foreign trade.
Antofagasta PLC ↗Concentration2024
Antofagasta's Centinela mine in the Atacama Desert is one of the first major copper operations to commit to 100% desalinated seawater for process water — building a 100km pipeline from a Pacific coast desalination plant to the mine at 2,800m elevation. This supply chain innovation demonstrates the water scarcity constraint on Atacama copper production: Chilean mines collectively produce ~25% of global copper supply, but the Atacama receives less than 1mm of rainfall per year in some areas. As global copper demand rises (driven by EVs, grid, and AI data center power infrastructure), Antofagasta's ability to expand depends on its capacity to build and operate desalination plants — meaning a Chilean desalination engineering and energy constraint (the plants are energy-intensive) becomes a bottleneck for global copper supply expansion.
Antofagasta PLC ↗