Solving High Steel Consumption: Chuquicamata’s Path to Higher Throughput & Lower Cost/Ton

December 5, 2025

Chile: Chuquicamata Copper
A large copper-gold concentrator in North America was experiencing inefficiencies in its semi-autogenous mill operation—high steel ball consumption was limiting output. To address this, the plant replaced its product with Φ80 mm high-chromium grinding balls (hardness 65-67 HRC, breakage rate <0.1%) manufactured by our plant. Following implementation, due to the superior wear resistance of the high-chromium balls, the steel ball filling rate decreased by 1.5% (from 5.2% to 3.7% of mill volume). Simultaneously, mill throughput surged to 900 tonnes per hour (a 12% increase). These results reduced processing costs by $1.80 per tonne and increased annual revenue by $21 million by improving ore recovery and reducing downtime for steel ball replenishment.

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