Chile’s Minera Vary mining group is to invest $250 million in a new port in the northern Atacama region. As of 2012, the company expects to produce between 1.6mt (million tonnes) and 2mt of iron ore from its Copiapo´ fields, which will be just 30km from the new port.
Punta Calderas port, the project for which first emerged in 2007, is currently undergoing an environmental impact assessment.
According to Minera Vary, it is only feasible to extract the iron ore in large quantities and then export them to Europe, when demand is high, thereby justifying the cost of developing the field. Once the assessment has been completed, it is hoped to get work under way by February 2012 the latest.