BHP, the majority owner and operator of Minera Escondida in Chile, will have to spend $93 million as part of an environmental plan drawn up to resolve a legal dispute last year, the country's First Environmental Court said on Wednesday June 2.
The Chilean State brought a law suit against BHP in April 2020 over environmental damage related to its excessive extraction of water at the Salar de Punta Negra, a salt pan neighboring the Escondida project, which is the world's largest copper mine.The flagship copper mine is expected to produce 1.01-1.06 million tonnes of copper in the 2021 financial year - equivalent to over 5% of the world's annual mined copper output - according to...