5th International Conference and Exhibition on Mass Mining, Lule Sweden 9-11 June 2008

Lessons learned in cave mining at the El Teniente mine over the period
1997-2007

Octavio Araneda El Teniente, Codelco, Chile

Andre Sougarret El Teniente, Codelco, Chile

Abstract
Although most mining companies, and the El Teniente Division of Codelco is no exception, spend the vast
majority of their time looking forward, it is often valuable to look back in time, evaluating what has
happened, both the good and the bad, and extracting the lessons learned. This paper reviews the growth that
El Teniente has experienced over the period 1997 2007, the changing geotechnical conditions under which
this growth has taken place, the mining system development which has been required in response to the new
conditions, and some of the lessons learned.

1 Introduction
The aim of this paper is to review cave mining as carried out at the El Teniente mine over the past 10 years
and to present some thoughts about the lessons learned based upon this experience.
In 1997, El Teniente mined 97.000 tpd of ore. Of this, 50% was primary ore (hypogene, hard rock), and the
other 50% was secondary ore (supergene, and softer rock). Two big challenges were successfully faced (1)
the re-start of the Teniente Sub-6 sector after the major rockbursting events which occurred during 1989 to
1992 (Rojas et al (2000), Dunlop and Gaete (1995), Dunlop and Gaete (1997)), and (2) the start up of a new
mining sector in primary rock, Esmeralda (Barraza and Crorkan (2000)).
With regard to Sub-6, a very successful experimental mining program was carried out between 1994 and
1996 with the result being a significant advance in the knowledge of rockbursting. The lessons learned
included: (1) practical ways to minimize the risk through the control of mining (draw rates, undercutting
rates), (2) the development of a seismic monitoring system, and (3) the introduction of procedures to
minimize worker exposure. By 1997, Sub-6 was producing 10.000 tpd, the breakthrough to the overlying
cave surface had been accomplished, and the sector was undercutting and growing without major rockbursts
(see Figure 1).

Figure 1 Mining activity in the Sub-6 sector. After Rojas et al (2000a).

The design of the Esmeralda sector (see Figure 2) was based on experience gained in the mining of Sub-6
and Teniente 4 South. The pre-undercutting concept (Rojas et al (2001), Rojas et al (2000b)) was introduced
to avoid the heavy damage to the production level and to the orepasses which is normal in conventional panel
caving due to the passing of the abutment stress ahead of the undercutting front. The introduction of pre-
undercutting naturally required a new mine design. Undercutting at Esmeralda started in 1996.

Undercut limit
Ore mined
December 1999

Figure 2 The Esmeralda sector in year 1999

2 Increasing Production at the Worlds Largest Underground Mine

Over the period 1997 to 1999, a pre-feasibility study was conducted in response to the need to replace the
Sewell mill and to expand the total milling capacity from 97.000 up to 126.000 tpd. With regard the Sewell,
although the mill had performed admirably since its inauguration in the early 1900s, it was showing its age
and the mine was deepening below the transport level used to feed the plant.
The investment program considered increasing the concentrator capacity at Colon through the addition of a
new sag mill and the expansion of the ball milling and flotation plants. The project also included increasing
the capacity of the main railway system located on Teniente 8 through automation and the replacement of
locomotives (Salt and Mears (2006)).
With respect to the mine, the expansion project was based on the incorporation of two new mining sectors
(Pipa Norte operating at 10.000 tpd and Diablo Regimiento operating at 28.000 tpd)), and the expansion of
two existing sectors (Esmeralda from 20.000 tpd to 45.000 tpd and Reservas Norte from 10.000 to 35.000
tpd). The challenges included not only an increase of around 30% in the production rate but also dealing with
a change in the character of the ore being mined (up to 80% primary ore).
The mining plans were based on the learning obtained to date in Sub-6 and Esmeralda. Draw rates range
between 0,3 and 0,6 tpd/m2 with undercutting rates up to 30.000 m2 /year per sector. Diablo Regimiento had
to face the breakthrough phase to the cave above. Past experience had shown the process to be particularly
complicated in Sub-6 and to a lesser extent in Esmeralda.
Reservas Norte, the expansion of the former Sub-6 sector, had undergone major changes in design, including
the change from post undercutting to pre undercutting, and a new truck-based material handling system with
ore passes down to Teniente 8.

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The Pipa Norte and Diablo Regimiento (see Figure 3) designs were based on that of Northparkes, due to
their relatively small foot print size. The aim was to achieve high productivity (over 200 tpd/man) and haul
the ore from the draw points to grizzlies mounted directly over the crushers. The pick hammers mounted
above the grizzlies could handle large boulders (up to 1,5 m). The design included the use of large LHDs
(13 yd3), and an LHD automation system (Varas (2004), Schweikart and Soikkeli (2004)).

SCh5

SCh1

SCh3
h4
SC

SCh2

Figure 3 Diablo Regimiento production level showing the crusher station locations

3 The El Teniente Mine Today

Now, ten years after starting our expansion program, we are producing at around 140.000 tpd of which 80%
is primary ore. The expansion program increased the fine copper production from 330.000 up to 430.000
mt/y. This has happened in the upper part of the copper price cycle.
In general terms, the smaller sectors such as Pipa Norte and Diablo Regimiento, have experienced only small
differences between the actual results and those planned.
Pipa Norte has had very good geotechnical behaviour. The advance of the undercutting has occurred
smoothly and without major problems.
The breakthrough process at Diablo Regimiento, helped by pre-conditioning using hydraulic fracturing, was
very successful. The seismicity was of low magnitude and no rock bursts occurred during the entire process.
The expected time for the breakthrough, based on Esmeralda and Sub-6 experience, was 23 months. The
actual breakthrough took just 10 months. This allowed the sector to achieve a production rate above the plan
established for 2007.
The major problems, most of them from the geotechnical side were focused on the big caves: Esmeralda and
Reservas Norte.
The main goal of the Esmeralda design was to avoid large rockbursts and, in that, the design has been very
successful. However, since year 2001, the mine has been faced with collapses in the central part of the face.
The undercutting rate has been reduced and we have been forced to generate contingency plans in order to
deliver the planned production. A change from pre- to advance-undercutting is in process, and also a new
mining sequence that reduces the width of cave faces.

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 A. H.T. A.H.P .

Collapsed area
RA
MPA
AU
CL
.

A.H.P.

A.H.T.

ACCESO SUR A RAMPA EX XC-10 AS

SU B-ES T E

F RO NT. L LE G.
CH IM .# 2 INY.
. LEC .

Actual caving
face
CABECERA HW

Figure 4 The Esmeralda sector in year 2007

Preaconditioned
area

Actual caving
face

Figure 5 The Reservas Norte sector in year 2007

In Reservas Norte, the main problem has been rockbursting, especially in the west side of the face (stronger
rock mass). A series of rockbursts since 2001 have slowed the pace of the advance of the cave, and a big
rockburst in August 2005 forced us to review the way the sector was planned to be mined. After the
successful experience with pre-conditioning in Diablo Regimiento, all the caving front of Reservas Norte
(68.000 m2) has been preconditioned. Undercutting and extraction on the pre-conditioned rock mass will start
by the end of 2007.
We have managed to handle all of the difficulties mentioned with different contingency plans, but with
higher costs than those planned. The lessons that will be shared form the basis for the changes that El
Teniente is making in order to enhance the performance and reliability of the main mining areas. They will
also be the basis for new projects.

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4 The lessons learned
4.1 Beware of wide caving fronts
If we look at the history of mining in Teniente over the last 25 years, the major problems have been
associated with wide panel caving fronts. Teniente 4 South, Sub-6/Reservas Norte and Esmeralda have all
had caving fronts with widths between 500 m and 900 m.
It is difficult to find experience elsewhere with such wide fronts. The normal experience in other mines is to
use caving fronts with widths less than 300 m (see Figure 6 and Table 1).

Table 1 Mining front width for several caving mines

Mine Front width (m)
Esmeralda (Teniente) 500-800
NorthParkes < 200
Palabora 200
DOZ 200-300
Henderson 150-200
In our experience, wide caving fronts have associated operational and geotechnical difficulties, mainly the
occurrence of collapses.

DOZ

ESMERALDA MINE PALABORA

Figure 6 Caving front widths for several panel caving mines

The hypothesis (Ferguson (2006)) concerning the geotechnical difficulties is that the wide and long panel
caving fronts promote high abutment stresses and large displacements of the rock mass both above and
below the caving excavation as the undercut front passes. The large displacements beneath the caving
excavation, the associated strains, and the induced relaxed zone, significantly weaken the jointed rock mass
in which the production level is developed. The greatest effect of this weakening will ordinarily be observed
in the central area of the caving front especially where the rock mass characteristics have been modified by
the presence of major structures.

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The operational difficulties involved in the use of wide caving fronts, plus the logistics and management
problems involved in supervising such caving fronts (almost a kilometre in length in some cases), are
daunting. It is very difficult to successfully operate a very wide front.
The practical argument in favour of the use of reduced caving front widths is the successful experience
obtained in the Teniente 4 Regimiento, Teniente 3 Brechas, Teniente 4 Isla LHD, Pipa Norte, Diablo
Regimiento, and Puente mining sectors. All had caving fronts of reduced width.
During 2006, the mine had a very successful experience with reducing the cave width in Teniente 4 South.
Now, we are moving to reduced width caving fronts in Esmeralda and Reservas Norte. The new Pilar Norte
project (17.000 tpd cave) will be developed using the same concept.

4.2 Advance undercutting: fine tuning the mine design

The Teniente experience throughout the 1980s and in the beginning of the 1990s was the use of post
undercutting. The main problems with the design were the high level of damage in the production level, the
low availability of the production infrastructure and the over-breaking of ore passes.
The high magnitude of the abutment stresses (between 70 to 90 MPa) generated a zone of damage around the
caving face and remedial actions were needed after the pass of the face. Also the different levels were
extremely vulnerable to seismic events which generated heavy damage especially in the abutment stress
zone.
In 1997, pre-undercutting was introduced in the Esmeralda sector (Figure 7) with the aim of minimizing the
damage on the production level and to have a stronger mine infrastructure to reduce the damage generated by
seismicity.
The quality of the development improved in a remarkable way together with a huge reduction in the damage
level. The availability of the mine increased (from 75% with post undercutting up to 90%), and the design
resisted the seismic activity very well. In fact the damage on the production level as a result of seismicity
was negligible.
The condition of the ore passes also improved, not only because of the change in the construction sequence,
but also because of improvements in support (steel rings).
However, new problems were generated by the design that had not been previously assessed properly. The
first one was that the damage issue was translated to the undercutting level (UCL). In post undercutting the
undercut design involved drifts separated by 30m leaving pillars of 26m width. The height if the undercut
was 18m. In the pre-undercutting design, the drifts were separated by 15m, leaving pillars of 11m width. The
undercut was flat with a height of 4m. The reduction in pillar width combined with the increased abutment
stress condition ahead of the extraction face due to the flat undercut, generated a problem of damage in the
UCL. This was especially serious in the weaker rockmasses (the central and eastern part of the face).
Damage to the blast holes, for example, greatly complicated the undercutting process. Poor drilling and
blasting generated the possibility of leaving remnant pillars which, in turn, caused collapses on the
production level.
The second problem with the design involved logistics and planning. The concept of developing and building
most of the mine below the completed undercut implies two things. The first is that you need a distance of at
least 60 m between the undercut face and the first drawbell in extraction. Very simply, you need space to
do the mine preparation. The second thing is that you have a very small space to do the job. This generates a
great level of congestion and a low number of working faces. The problem, of course, increases with a wider
caving face.

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Figure 7 The development zone in pre and post undercutting. After Rojas et al (2000a) and
Rojas et al (2001).

This condition imposes heavy restrictions on sector development, reducing the productivity and increasing
the cost. In response, there is a tendency on the part of the operators to try and generate more space by
increasing the distance (the beam length) between the undercut face and the extraction face. However, this
increases the abutment stress, the seismicity and the damage level in the UCL.
Finally, pre-undercutting, given the fact that it does not allow the construction of ore passes and
infrastructure ahead of the caving face, complicates the possibility to encircle and limit in a fast way any
collapse of the production level. This complicates the management of the problem.
What is the best design? We think that the advance undercut design is the best solution. It reduces the
complexity regarding mine preparation, reduces the beam length and has a better chance to handle collapses.
The experience in Pipa Norte, Diablo Regimiento and Reservas Norte is practical confirmation of that. We
are changing to advance undercut in Esmeralda and implementing it in new projects such as Pilar Norte.
We are still looking for a better design for the UCL. The high stress level in Teniente complicates any design
because the pillar safety factors are very close to 1 and wider pillars are very difficult to blast efficiently.

4.3 Design and plan to face problems since bad things could occur
The experience of the past years has shown that geotechnical problems like collapses and rockbursts can be
controlled and reduced. However they will occur.
Mine planning and mine design have to take into account the geotechnical risks and contingency actions and
plans must be developed in order to reduce the impact of their occurrence.
In the production expansion feasibility study, a risk analysis of the mine plan was performed and
contingency measures were defined to handle major deviations. Two means to mitigate risks were analyzed:
the extraction of crater material, and the availability of contingency sectors.
The crater material is the broken ore left in place during the mining of overlying levels. More than 10 levels
have been mined since 1905 with cut off grades over 1 %, especially in levels mined before 1970. Because of
the grade selection process and incomplete recovery in certain areas, a huge resource is now available in the

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crater which is now convenient (economically) to be mined. At present, the crater resource usually forms
only a small portion of the mine plan. Since 2003, a drilling program has been carried out in order to have a
better knowledge of the resource. Better information is now available.
Contingency sectors typically contain marginal ore. They are smaller projects that can be easily put into
production in order to handle a major failure or deviation in the mine plan. Mining sectors of 5.000 to 7.000
tpd and with a life of 3 to 5 years are identified and the engineering is done in order to have a portfolio of
options to cover the risks. With the advance of the mine plan, a decision has to be taken whether to use the
option (to build the project) or to wait. Also, the mine design must be fully developed in order to be able to
respond and behave in an appropriate way when these events occur.
In the case of the Esmeralda, a hard lesson was learned. As was mentioned, the Esmeralda design was
conceptualized to solve the rockbursting problem and to avoid long ore passes to reduce the over-break. With
regard to the risk of collapse, the concept was that through the use of pre-undercutting the production level
would be of such high quality and strength that the risk would be minimal.
With that in mind, the design of the levels (30 m between the production level and the haulage level with
another 30m to the ventilation level) was made. Unfortunately, the close proximity of these levels imposed
great difficulties for the recovery of a collapse behind the production level. Such a recovery at Teniente 4
South, which had a different disposition of levels, was highly successful.
In summary, problems will happen and the mine plan and design must take into account that fact. Both the
plan and the design must have the flexibility to handle the problems.

4.4 Quality and discipline are essential

Which of the problems in the mine are due to technical issues and which ones can be attributed to bad quality
and discipline?
It is difficult to know, but our opinion is that most rockbursts and collapses could be avoided by improving
quality and achieving better discipline.
In the case of El Teniente, since 2004 a major effort has been made to improve the quality assurance and
control systems. In the field of mine development and construction, a huge improvement was done through
(1) a strengthening of the management and technical teams leading the job, (2) better and more detailed
plans, and (3) a new bidding system (long term contracts). However we still are having quality problems,
especially in the undercutting process.
The issue is very difficult because of a cultural problem and the size and complexity of the operations and
the organization. The challenge is to move from a production culture to a quality culture. The geotechnical
environment El Teniente is facing, high stress and low safety factors, does not allow for mistakes.
The future deepening of the El Teniente mine requires this cultural change to be accomplished and an
operational management system based on quality and the strict achievement of plans to be put into place.

4.5 Mining control is not enough to handle seismicity

The control of induced seismicity through control of the mine process and seismic monitoring has been very
successful at Teniente. The number of rockbursts has been dramatically reduced over the last 10 years. We
have not have suffered any rock-burst related fatalities in the last 16 years while mining over 500 million
tons of ore.
However, big rockbursts occur every two or three years generating severe damage and delays to the advance
of the caves. More importantly, they pose a severe risk to the personnel.
The last big rockburst which occurred on August 30, 2005 in Reservas Norte indicated to us that monitoring
and control of mining were not enough to minimize that kind of risk.

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 5

After Preconditioning

4 Before Preconditioning

3
LOG10(N)

0
-2 -1.7 -1.4 -1.1 -0.8 -0.5 -0.2 0.1 0.4 0.7 1 1.3 1.6 1.9 2.2 2.5

MAGNITUDE

Figure 8 Seismic activity before and after preconditioning

The answer, it seems, is to modify the rock using hydraulic fracturing in order to allow it to have a more
controlled dissipation of energy. The experience in Diablo Regimiento with pre-conditioning showed that the
maximum size of seismic events can be reduced significantly (Figure 8). The result was maximum seismic
events of magnitude Richter 1.2, versus Richter 2 that were to be expected based on Esmeralda experience
(Araneda and Morales (2007)).
The mine is now putting in place an extensive pre-conditioning program in Reservas Norte, the most
seismically active area, and using an upgraded seismic network. The evaluation of this experience is key to
assessing the effect of pre-conditioning in the reduction of seismic risk and its relevance for the future of
mining in Teniente.
Another lesson learned in relation to seismicity is the effect of the column height on seismic risk. For several
years there was the belief that column height had a major influence on seismicity. In fact, the Esmeralda
mine was designed with a low column height (140m) precisely to avoid the possibility of having big seismic
events related to a high column height.
The actual experience shows that induced seismicity has a greater relationship to the rock mass
characteristics (competence) than column height. In fact, the region with the greatest column height in
Teniente (East wall, over 400m high) has a lower seismic risk compared to the lower column height zone
(West zone with more competent rock). That empirical fact reinforces the rationale behind pre-conditioning
as a promising tool for reducing seismic risk.

5 Summary Facing the Future

We have reported some of the lessons learned over the last 10 years. The question is how to best incorporate
this learning into the actual operations and future projects.
An example of a current project is Pilar Norte which involves the mining of an ore pillar containing 40 Mt
located between the Esmeralda and Reservas Norte sectors. Pilar Norte has incorporated:
Reduced width caving faces
Block type mining sequence
Massive pre-conditioning
Advance undercut
UCL design with more robust pillars
Besides these technical issues, quality, discipline, and cultural changes must all be achieved.

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We have major challenges to address and problems to solve in Teniente over the next few years, not only in
the present mine, but also in the design and construction of the next deepening, the New Mine Level project.
The sharing of lessons between companies is relevant if the mining industry wants to succeed in the future
development of current caving operations and new projects.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their thanks to CODELCO Chile Divisin El Teniente for the permission
to publish this paper. Special thanks are extended to William Hustrulid, Marko Didyk and the other members
of the Teniente Technical Advisory Board, Dick Stacey and Yves Potvin. Finally, we would like to recognize
Gavin Ferguson for his contributions over all these many years and to all of our colleagues at El Teniente
who contributed to this paper.

References
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