Extract
from Shotcrete Magazine, August 2000
Antamina copper mine is a $2.2 billion project in
the Andes Mountains of Peru. The project, owned by Canadian mining giants
Noranda, Teck and Rio Algom, is one of the single largest mining investments in
the Americas at this moment and comprises the construction of an open pit, a
conveyor tunnel, a tailings dam, a mill and port facilities for export of
processed concentrate all over the globe.
The entire project is based on the highest world
standards of safety, environmental protection and construction quality, with
general construction management being done by Bechtel of the USA in joint
venture with Cosapi of Peru. Amongst the various infrastructure needed is a
decant tunnel to take the possible overflow from the tailings dam to a
conversion route. This tunnel happened to be in the critical path of the entire
project and therefore required strict tolerances for time of completion. This
tunnel, designed by Golder Associates' Vancouver office in association with
Ingetec of Columbia was awarded to Redpath Mas Errazuriz Peru (RME Peru), a
tunnel contracting joint venture of Redpath of Canada and Mas Errazuriz of
Chile. It was designed to be shotcreted during excavation with different
shotcrete thicknesses according to ground conditions.
It was RME Peru's decision to contract out the
shotcrete supply to Target Products of Canada. The main factors for this
decision were:
 |
High
shotcrete quality standards imposed by the client |
|
Shotcrete
supplier's guaranteed shotcrete delivery |
|
Ability
to deal with a single supplier for all shotcrete related matters rather
than several suppliers (cement, aggregates, admixtures, fibers, mixing
equipment, etc.) |
|
Less
supply items to manage on site (stock only shotcrete rather than cement,
admixtures, etc.) |
|
Less
equipment on site, where problems are difficult and costly to solve |
|
Less
manpower on site, lower boarding and transportation costs |
|
Gain
in construction speed by having shotcrete always available on site |
|
Access
to state-of-the-art personnel and expertise from supplier's staff |
Target Products is proud to announce that in
order to supply the project, we created an association with La Viga of Peru and
met the challenge of initiating supply only one week after signing of the
contract with RME Peru.
Click here to view a Target Products Client
list of Major Mining and Tunnelling Projects
