mine visit
Six Atlas Copco ROC F7 crawler rigs are topping production
expectations at the mines of one of the world’s largest producer of
mineral salts – Adriana Potts
Salt of
With the Atlas Copco ROC
F7 rigs, Somich has been
able to further reduce the
size of its fleet by keeping
one machine on standby
and still meet the
demanding targets
2/World Mining Equipment
s the world’s sole producer of nat-
A ural nitrates and one of the largest
producers of mineral salts,
Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile
(Soquimich), needs to constantly improve
all of its operating units in order to sustain
its competitive position. In pursuit of this
strategy, Somich, the company’s operating
subsidiary currently working five mines
and seven process plants in the Atacama
Desert region of northern Chile, switched
from pneumatic to the latest hydraulic pro-
duction drilling equipment, all sourced
from Atlas Copco.
A brief history
Saltpetre (sodium or potassium nitrate) has
been used since prehispanic times by abo-
riginal people to preserve their dead,
though since the 19th century it has been
mainly used as a basic feedstock for fer-
tiliser manufacture and as a preservative.
Chile’s saltpetre mines have been, at vari-
ous times, coveted by several European
countries -especially by Britain- and were
one of the main causes of the War of the
Pacific during 1879-83 between Bolivia,
Chile and Peru.
The nitrate deposits occur within a 700
km belt located some 15 to 60 km inland
and parallel to the Pacific coast of the cen-
tral portion of northern Chile. This area
contains nitrate-rich soils and surface
encrustations, saline-cemented regolith,
closed basins containing clay playas and
the commercial deposits themselves. The
origin of these unique nitrate deposits
relates to the fact that this part of the
Atacama Desert is amongst the driest
regions in the world and, more important-
ly, that these conditions have prevailed for
over 15 million years.
In the 1830s, Chile began supplying
much of the world’s commercial nitrate
requirements from these deposits.
However, the mines were unable to satisfy
rapidly increasing demand and by the early
1900s, natural nitrates were being chal-
lenged by ammonia recovered from coke
ovens and then from atmospheric nitrogen
recovered using the Haber-Bosch process.
Soquimich was established in 1968 in
order to take over the nitrate assets of the
Chilean state-owned development organi-
sation Corporación de Fomento de
Producción (Corfo) and the privately held
Compañía Salitrera Anglo Lautaro. The
idea was to reorganise and revitalise the
run-down industry, which had been hit
October 2000

Soquimich’s deposits of nitrate ore are sufficient to sustain mining for another 50 years
hard by the competition from synthetic
nitrates. In 1971, Anglo Lautaro sold its
remaining shares to Corfo, placing all the
assets in the hands of the government. In
the 1980s Corfo began the privatisation
process with the flotation of Soquimich on
the Santiago Stock Exchange and by 1988
the company was entirely in pri-
vate hands. Boosted by
significant by- and co-product
values from iodine, sodium sul-
phate and boric acid, together
with some important technical
advantages over the synthetics,
Soquimich has today revived and
modernised the Chilean nitrate
industry. Furthermore, it is esti-
mated that the company’s
deposits of nitrate ore are suffi-
cient to sustain mining for
another 50 years.
Mining and production
Soquimich, which employs 700
direct workers plus about 300
from contractors, currently oper-
ates five mines, all located in
northern Chile between the
coastal cities of Iquique and
Antofagasta. The mines are:
Pedro de Valdivia, which started
operations in 1931 and produces
11.55 million tonnes of crude
nitrate a year; Maria Elena, start-
ed in 1927 and producing 6.51
million tonnes a year; Florencia, started in
1995 and producing 5.0 million tonnes a
year, and finally, Laguna and Mapocho,
which were started in 1996 and produce
3.6 million tonnes a year (at press time,
these two mines were reported to be tem-
porarily closed).
The crude nitrate ore is conventionally
mined in open pits using drilling and blast-
ing and is hauled by trucks to the crushing
plants where the caliche ore is crushed to
October 2000
mine visit
approximately 12 mm. Once there, 71% of New drilling patterns
the ore is leached in shallow pans to recov- When operations began in 1926, the
er nitrates, iodine, sulphates and other nitrates company needed a total of 58
salts, which are then further treated to wagon-type compressed air drilling rigs for
obtain the final products. The remaining production. Mr Johann Schmidt, from the
29% is sent to leaching stacks, from which Atlas Copco Chilena office in Antofagasta
salts are also recovered. told WME how in 1981, five Atlas Copco
ROC 302 drill rigs and 18 drilling
units from another supplier were
used to produce 15.5 million
tonnes of ore a year. Today, just six
Atlas Copco ROC F7 crawler rigs
are needed to fully satisfy the cur-
rent production rate of 18 million
tonnes a year.
Five of the new rigs were deliv-
ered to Somich in August 1998
with the last one arriving in
“...and here February 1999. Each of the
is where I machines feature Mercedes Benz
keep my
food warm. diesel engines delivering 170 kW
Now, where and drill 76 and 89 mm holes with
did I put that T45 rods and using ballistic bits.
sandwich?” Furthermore, the rigs are equipped
with the powerful Cop 1838,
which according to Andrzej
Zablocki, manager of mining
equipment at Atlas Copco
Chilena, reach 65 drill metres per
diesel engine hour. “That means
over 100 drill metres per effective
drilling hour,” he said.
According to Atlas Copco, the
ROC F7 rigs quickly proved their
worth at the nitrate mines, provid-
Each mine has its own production ing more drilling power, longer drill steel
plant and apart from those, Soquimich life and better all-round production perfor-
has a further two plant facilities at Coya mances. Eduardo Arce, the mine manager,
Sur and Salar de Atacama. Annually, the confirmed this: “We have managed to
plants collectively produce 980,000 increase mineral production performance.
tonnes of saltpetre; 6,500 tonnes of Compared with the old crawler rigs that we
iodine; 60,000 tonnes of sodium sulphate; previously used, performance is 20% better
600,000 tonnes of potassium chloride; and the number of effective operational
250,000 tonnes of potassium sulphate; hours has increased by 5%.” In fact, with a
16,000 tonnes of boric acid and 20,000 rate of production now running at 450
tonnes of lithium carbonate. m/shift, it has been possible for Somich to
World Mining Equipment/3
mine visit

programme’s administration and he

explained that there are three shifts
of eight hours and that the machines
drill around 800 m per shift, depend-
ing on the ground.
However, before the new MARC
contract, Atlas Copco had already
been supplying drill steel under a
cost-per-metre arrangement agreed in
1993. Mr Arce said, “The service and
spare parts supply contract is excel-
lent and enables us to maintain a
constant level of drilling costs over a
long period.” He said that, for the
first time, they were virtually depen-
dent on a single supplier, as Atlas
Copco Rock Tools had the drill steel
supply contract. Mr Arce added:
“With the exception of the rig opera-
tors, everything to do with drilling is
now in the hands of Atlas Copco and

further reduce the size of its fleet by keep-

ing one rig on standby and still meet the
demanding targets.
WME was told that the mine had some
problems to keep the holes well stabilised
once drilling was finished and so Atlas
Copco has now installed a water mist sys-
tem for final flushing in one of the rigs to
solve this problem (only air flushing was
used before). “It works well and all rigs will
eventually be equipped with the same sys-
tem,” said Mr Zablocki, and added,
“Keeping the walls smoother makes it
much easier to charge the holes with explo-
sives.”
Mr Arce told WME how Atlas Copco
supported the company by providing
training for the operators. “The ROC F7
machine is one of the more complex mod-
els,” he said, adding, “In general terms, a
drilling machine is more complex than, design and good visibility “Also, we can the support we get from the company is
say, a truck, but Atlas Copco supported us now start collaring holes immediately, very important to us.”
all the way through.” He also mentioned without wasting time starting the hole as After such good results, is there a pos-
how at the beginning, he was a bit worried we did previously,” he said. sibility of Somich investing in more Atlas
that the ROC F7 machines had a Mercedes An interesting aspect of the order for Copco drill rigs? Mr Arce’s answer was: “If
Benz engine “We didn’t have any experi- the drilling rigs is the signing of a five year the Florencia mine increases its productiv-
ence of this engine, but in the end the Maintenance And Repair Contract ity -as we expect- we could be purchasing
availability of the machines is more than (MARC), whereby Atlas Copco carries out another drill rig.”
we expected, over 90%, very satisfactory.” all the maintenance activities related to the
The landscape of the Atacama Desert is ROC F7 machines. “We’ve worked with
a dramatic ensemble of dry open plains, and managed MARC contracts since 1990 Other sources for this article: Atlas Copco
dunes and mountains where the intense and so it was only logical that we signed Mining and Construction magazine, Number
day sun can blind and the inexperienced one with Atlas Copco,” said Mr Arce, 2, 1999, The Industrial Minerals Handybook
can easily get lost. At the time of WME highlighting the fact that Somich already 3rd Edition, Industrial Minerals July 1997,
visit to the Maria Elena mine, despite had experience with such contracts, where- Encyclopaedia Britannica web pages.
being escorted by Atlas Copco, it took as for Atlas Copco Chilena, this was a first.
longer than expected to find the site where Ricardo Veas is Atlas Copco Chilena’s on- (All pics: Adriana Potts)
one of the ROC F7 drill rigs was working. site person in charge of the maintenance
WME does not want to imagine what it
would be like to try to find the machine From the dictionary
during one of the night shifts…
Misael Rojas, the operator of the ROC Sodium Nitrate: a white crystalline soluble solid compound occurring naturally as
F7, has been working for the company for Chile saltpetre and caliche and used in matches, explosives and rocket propellants and
25 years during which time he has operat- as a fertiliser. Formula: NaNO3
ed a range of drilling equipment including
Tamrock and other Atlas Copco models. Potassium Nitrate: colourless or white crystalline compound used in gunpowders,
He told WME how happy he was with the pyrotechnics, fertilisers and as a preservative. Formula: KNO3. Also called saltpetre,
new rig because of its comfortable cabin nitre.

4/World Mining Equipment October 2000