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Cerro Verde is an open-pit copper and molybdenum mining complex with Phelps Dodge being the major shareholder. The mine consists of two large open pits, the Cerro Verde pit and the Santa Rosa pit, located at 2,700 m elevation, 34 km south of Arequipa city, from which its 480 employees are bused to work.
It must really have been at one time a 'green mountain', to be called Cerro Verde in Spanish. But he name probably did not come from lush vegetation, but from a greenish tinge of the earth caused by all the oxidized copper in the ground.
Spaniards mined high-grade copper oxide ore from Cerro Verde and shipped it to
Wales in the mid-1800s. Anaconda owned the property from 1916 until 1970, when
the mine was acquired by the state. The government mined Cerro Verde’s oxide
ores and built one of the world’s first SX/EW facilities in 1972. Cyprus Amax
purchased the operation in 1994 and invested substantial capital in the property
to upgrade and improve productivity. In the eight years after privatization,
copper production increased by about 350% and costs were reduced by more than
40%.
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