Name: Orcopampa mine.
Location: The Orcopampa mine, also known as Chipmo is located in the Castilla mining district of Peru.
Holding and Controlling Company: Buenaventura (BVN).
Brief Description: The mine produces mainly gold and silver as by-product and it has a carbon-in-leach process plant with a 24 000 t/d capacity.
Orcopampa has been consistently successful in replacing mined reserves year-on-year.
Brief History: The Orcopampa is a plant deposit site discovered in 1960.
Production began in 1967.
The mine was operated as a silver mine until the late 1990s, when BVN began to drill gold-bearing veins.
Products: Gold and silver.
Geology/Mineralisation: Orcopampa is an epithermal/mesothermal gold and silver deposit, hosted in volcanic rocks from the Tertiary period, comprising flows and domes with a dacitic and andesitic composition.
Mineralisation is found in tellurides, native gold, electrum, and sulphosalts, among others, in veins of quartz and anhydrite. Chipmo mine is the current operating area with vein systems running north-east to south-west. The Calera and Chipmo veins, from which more than 90% of Orcopampa´s production comes, were discovered by the companies’ geologists.
Reserves: Total proven and probable reserves as at December 31, 2016, were estimated at 763 885 t grading 47.28 g/ silver and 14.7 g/t gold.
Mining Method: Underground operation that uses mechanised cut-and-fill methods.
Major Infrastructure and Equipment: The mine’s operations include crushing, milling or sorting, gravimetry, cyanidation, thickening, carbon-in-pulp, flotation, cyanidation with gravimetric concentrates, desorption or electrowinning, Merrill-Crowe, smelting, carbon acid washing, carbon regeneration, cyanide destruction and tailings disposal.
Power comes from the national grid and water is taken from a nearby lake and river.
Prospects: Currently the Nazareno and Prometida deposits are being mined.
New discoveries have continued to expand the life-of-mine for more than five years.
Contact: BVN investor relations Rodrigo Echecopar
Contact Details:
Buenaventura
Tel (511) 419 2500 Ext. 2591
Email rodrigo.echecopar@buenaventura.pe
Website http://www.buenaventura.com