Case Study: Bioleaching project in Chile

BHP Billiton is the owner of the mine and manages the open pit copper mine in Atacama desert, in the north of Chile. It is currently the highest producing copper mine in the world.

Aim of monitoring:

The main aim of the monitoring system is to prevent the seepage of liquid acid through the dam (sulfuric and H+ ions that have been formed can leak into the ground). Roctest installed several kms of distributed temperature sensing cable in order to measure the temperature over a long distance while detecting abnormal infiltrations. Piezometers were also used to measure pore water pressure in the soil.