The complex nature of the minerals that are extracted from the mine made it necessary to design and build a highly complex, state-of-the art concentrator plant in Yanacancha. Worth US$755 million, the plant has a design capacity of 70,000 MT/day but is capable of processing 80,000 tons a day of up to six different types of minerals.

Some details that make this concentrator plant unique are:

	It has a giant 39 foot semi-autogenous, 27,000 horsepower Gearless Mill Drive SAG mill.
	It has three 24 by 36 foot, 15,000 horsepower ball mills. Thanks to the variable speeds of the mills it is possible to control the diverse types of minerals that are being processed.
	Based on the 80,000 tons of minerals that the mine dispatches on a daily basis, the concentrator plant produces three types of copper and zinc concentrates (with high and low bismuth) that are later pumped through the pipeline to the Punta Lobitos Port in Huarmey. The other three types of concentrates (molybdenum, lead-bismuth and bornite) are produced in a lower volume and hermetically transported by trucks.
	The daily cost of an operation of this magnitude is approximately US$ 250,000.

Antamina’s concentrator plant is a leading plant in terms of automatization. Safety and environmental respect and conservation are top Company priorities and constitute Antamina’s working philosophy, something that is expressed in the Concentrator Group’s “Zero Tolerance” slogan.