El Abra mine
The El Abra mine is a large copper mine located in northern Chile in the El Loa province. It is operated by American mining company Freeport-McMoRan, who owns a 51% stake in the mine, with the remainder owned by the Chilean state-owned Codelco. The stake owned by Freeport-McMoRan originally owned by Cyprus Amax Minerals and Lac Minerals until Phelps Dodge acquired Cyprus Minerals and Lac minerals was absorbed by Barric Gold in 1994. These two companies had won a bid to engage in a partnership with Codelco. It was then owned by Phelps Dodge until 2007 when Freeport-McMoRan completed a $25.9 billion acquisition of Phelps Dodge. The mine holds the The [Copper Mark] environmental certificate.
The development of the previously unexploited El Abra ores as a joint venture was enabled by the law Ley N° 19.137 of 1992 which allowed Codelco to sell its assests with the previous approval by the Chilean Copper Commission and allowed the company to form joint ventures. In the bid process nine proposals were evaluated by Codelco which settled for the joint bid of Cyprus Minerals and Lac Minerals. The bid process suffered however from an overestimation of resources by 14% which caused the winning party, Cyprus Amax Minerals and Lac Minerals, to renegotiate the acquisition down to US$345 million from the previous price of US$405 million. Codelco reportedly did not contest the new proposed price as a matter of the precedent failed negotiations would create for future joint ventures.
The mine's annual produce lies since 2016 in the range of 70 to 100 kMT copper fines. Previously, from 2005 to 2015 the annual produce was in the range of 120 to 220 kMT copper fines. As of 2025 it was Chile's 17th most productive copper mine.