low-cost country sourcing for the equipment and bulk materials in general. The importance of this will drive greater levels of effort from the supply chain groups as well as other aspects such as the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) approach. The importance of building off the industry’s successes should not be underestimated, and part of the project development plan should involve quality time set aside for site visits relevant to the particular project under development. The use of smart prefabricated modules that meet road transport envelopes for bulk material deliveries to the remote sites will continue to focus subject to the site location and proximity. In modern concentrator design, there is an equal or greater need for water in remote locations. As an example, in Chile, this means that as part of the overall project, owners have to consider the need for large scale sea water desalination plants for the production of water suitable for use on the project site. Table 12– Recent Projects with desalination plants Project # Location Capacity (L/s) Distance from Desalination plant to Mine site (km) Altitude (m.a.s.l) INCO MLP Choapa, Chile 400 62 3100 Collahuasi C20+6 Tarapacá, Chile 1050 194 Sea Level - 4400 QB 2 Tarapacá, Chile 1157 165 Sea Level - 4400 Escondida EWS Antofagasta, Chile 2500 170 Sea Level - 3100 MLP AD8007 Choapa, Chile 400 62 Sea Level - 3100 It is important that owners’ teams ensure that they have “buy in” from all stakeholder groups that can be impacted by the project development including government, state, regional authorities and local communities. The involvement of local communities early in the project development is an opportunity for mining companies to build a long-term sustainable operation that benefits all parties and communities. Downstream and post commissioning as part of the preparations for handover to the owners operational team, it is imperative that data is packaged and transferred from the contractor to the owners team in a meaningful and usable format. The optimal method will be to develop a digital twin of the project and then embed all the data, both design and original equipment manufacturers/contractors information, into the digital twin. The twin can then be used by the owners team as part of their operational systems for process control and asset integrity management and planned maintenance. All of the above points of discussion will drive towards a better understanding of the project environment, technical challenges as well as defining a robust and sustainable project for the future. 8. CLOSING THOUGHTS The global demand for minerals and metals to satisfy the multiple industries such as electrical cars, data centers, mobile telecommunications and “renewable” non fossil fuel based energy generation, together with general urbanization of parts of the world, has put global miners in a position of having to bring new resources on stream sooner. The projects will have a different feeling about them as regulatory approval systems will need to become more streamlined to improve project economics and reduce capital intensity, resources may be developed across international borders 6 Project currently in execution 7 Project currently in execution
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