The Pierina mine, operated by Minera Barrick Misquichilca S.A., a Peruvian subsidiary of Barrick Gold Corporation, is located in the north-western part of Peru in the Department of Ancash on the eastern flank of the Cordillera Negra, a mountain range with peaks that reach 5,000 metres above sea level. The elevations of the mine facilities range between 3,800 and 4,200 metres above sea level. The mine is an open pit operation consisting of an open pit, a valley-fill heap leach facility, a waste rock facility, a Merrill-Crowe processing plant and ancillary mine infrastructure. The project construction started in 1996 and production began in 1998; current useful life will extend mine operations until 2013. Closure planning at the mine started before mine construction and has been refined during the life of the operation through a continuous learning process by identifying and incorporating improvements into the closure plan for a variety of technical and social aspects. The objective is to have a final version of the closure plan and program ready for its execution three years before end of operations.
Orellana, R. and Robledo, M. (2010). Development of the Pierina mine closure plan - learning opportunities. In A.B. Fourie, M. Tibbett, & J. Wiertz (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Mine Closure. Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Viña del Mar (pp. 31-38).