Phosphate deposits of bayovar exploitation

Abstract

The extensive phosphate deposits of Bayovar were discovered in the 1950 decade in the coast of Piura. After more than half a century, the company Miski Mayo, a subsidiary of Vale, which won an international public tender called by PROINVERSION in 2005, began the exploitation of this area in the middle of 2010. This article describes the Bayovar area as well as the deposit characteristics, and also the development of the project undertaken by Vale for the extraction and processing of phosphate rock in order to obtain a phosphate concentrate with a minimum concentration of 29% of P₂O₅ and a processing capacity of 3.9 millions of tons each year, with an investment of US$ 566 millions. It also describes, in summary, the nine components of the total infrastructure: open pit mine, concentrator plant, industrial road, truck unloading area, conveyor, drying and storage area, port, sea water system, and electric transmission line. We review as well, the investments made by Vale and new projects in the area of Bayovar developed by other companies. It then presents the phosphate production statistics from 2010 and considers that a sector of industrialization in Peru would be the production of fertilizers, having the Bayovar phosphates as raw materials, discussing also some processes for the transformation of phosphates.