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Mines/Chile

El Abra mine

El Abra mine, Chile. Producing, open pit, mining copper since 1996.

Why El Abra is famous

Open-pit copper complex in Chile's Antofagasta region, in operation since 1996. Freeport holds 51%; 2025 production was 201 million lb of copper (100% basis).1,2

Story cards

What kind of deposit

Porphyry copper

El Abra today

Where copper is mined todayMining in Chile

Where next

Mines

An example ofEscondidaChile copper: El Abra opened in 1996, Escondida in 1990.1

Deposit types

An example ofPorphyry copperEl Abra belongs to the porphyry copper family of deposits.3

Sources

  1. Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025 Freeport-McMoRan Inc (SEC)
  2. data/minerals/operations.csv Prospector Trails (internal)
  3. Mineral Deposit Models (Bulletin 1693, Cox and Singer, eds., 1986) US Geological Survey

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Chuquicamata from the ISS by Alexander Gerst (ESA), CC BY-SA 2.0; Haul trucks by Lechhabmed, CC BY-SA 4.0; Drilling and blasting by Siim Roov, CC BY-SA 4.0.