 Sewell Camp at Night (image from Chile today and tomorrow) [1] | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Mining |
| Founded | 1904 |
| Defunct | 1967 |
| Fate | Nationalized by Chilean government |
| Headquarters | New York City, New York, U.S. |
Key people | Barton Sewell, William Braden |
| Products | Copper |
| Parent | Kennecott Corporation |
Braden Copper Company was an American company that controlled the El Teniente copper mine in Chile until 1967 when its copper holdings were nationalized.
Braden Copper Company was founded on 18 June 1904 by E.W. Nash, Barton Sewell, William Braden and other mining partners. Braden visited the mine during the winter of 1903-1904. Using capital of $625,000, the company purchased the mine and developed a mill at Sewell, Chile. Production started on 1 June 1906. [2] Barton Sewell never visited Chile and was limited to participating in the business as an upper executive at the companies central offices in New York City.
After E.W. Nash died in 1905, Braden turned to John Hays Hammond and Guggenex, owned by the Guggenheim brothers, for financing. Braden Mines Company was formed on 10 July 1909. In June 1910, the Guggenheims took control of the mine and provided financing which turned the oxcart road into a railway, built a three-thousand ton mill and hydroelectric plants. Kennecott Copper Corporation acquired 99 percent of Braden Copper Mines Company in 1915. [2] : 106–108, 146
In 1935, the Braden Copper Company signed the World Copper Agreement along with the rest of the world's principle mining companies. In 1945, the company constructed the Braden Copper Stadium in the city of Rancagua, now called Estadio El Teniente. This stadium would be seat of the 1962 FIFA World Cup.
In accordance with the Chilean nationalization of copper, by 1967 the Chilean government had acquired 51 percent of the stock in the Braden Copper Company. By 1971, the company was completely nationalized.
Chuquicamata is the largest open pit copper mine in terms of excavated volume in the world. It is located in the north of Chile, just outside Calama, at 2,850 m (9,350 ft) above sea level. It is 215 km (134 mi) northeast of Antofagasta and 1,240 km (770 mi) north of the capital, Santiago. Flotation and smelting facilities were installed in 1952, and expansion of the refining facilities in 1968 made 500,000 tons annual copper production possible in the late 1970s. Previously part of Anaconda Copper, the mine is now owned and operated by Codelco, a Chilean state enterprise, since the Chilean nationalization of copper in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Its depth of 850 metres (2,790 ft) makes it the second deepest open-pit mine in the world, after Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, United States.
Rancagua is a city and commune in central Chile and part of the Rancagua conurbation. It is the capital of the Cachapoal Province and of the O'Higgins Region, located 87 km (54 mi) south of the national capital of Santiago.
Codelco is a Chilean state-owned copper mining company. It was formed in 1976 from foreign-owned copper companies that were nationalised in 1971.
Kennecott, also known as Kennicott and Kennecott Mines, is an abandoned mining camp in the Copper River Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska that was the center of activity for several copper mines. It is located beside the Kennicott Glacier, northeast of Valdez, inside Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. The camp and mines are now a National Historic Landmark District administered by the National Park Service.
The nationalization of the Chilean copper industry, commonly described as the Chileanization of copper was the process by which the Chilean government acquired control of the major foreign-owned section of the Chilean copper mining industry. It involved the three huge mines known as 'La Gran Mineria' and three smaller operations. The Chilean-owned smaller copper mines were not affected. The process started under the government of President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, and culminated during the government of President Salvador Allende, who completed the nationalization. This "act of sovereignty" was the espoused basis for a later international economic boycott, which further isolated Chile from the world economy, worsening the state of political polarization that led to the 1973 Chilean coup d'état.
Kennecott Utah Copper LLC (KUC), a division of Rio Tinto Group, is a mining, smelting, and refining company. Its corporate headquarters are located in South Jordan, Utah. Kennecott operates the Bingham Canyon Mine, one of the largest open-pit copper mines in the world in Bingham Canyon, Salt Lake County, Utah. The company was first formed in 1898 as the Boston Consolidated Mining Company. The current corporation was formed in 1989. The mine and associated smelter produce 1% of the world's copper.
Antofagasta plc is a London-based Chilean multinational. It is one of the most important conglomerates of Chile with equity participation in Antofagasta Minerals, the railroad from Antofagasta to Bolivia, Twin Metals in Minnesota and other exploration joint ventures in different parts from the world. Antofagasta is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Estadio El Teniente, also known as Estadio El Teniente-Codelco for sponsorship reasons, is a multi-purpose stadium in Rancagua, Chile. It is currently used mostly for football matches. The stadium can fit 14,087 people and was built in 1945 with the name Braden Copper Company Stadium (Estadio Braden Copper Co.). The stadium is home to football club O'Higgins, which is based in Rancagua.
The Bingham Canyon Mine, more commonly known as Kennecott Copper Mine among locals, is an open-pit mining operation extracting a large porphyry copper deposit southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, in the Oquirrh Mountains. The mine is the largest man-made excavation, and deepest open-pit mine in the world, which is considered to have produced more copper than any other mine in history – more than 19,000,000 short tons. The mine is owned by Rio Tinto Group, a British-Australian multinational corporation. The copper operations at Bingham Canyon Mine are managed through Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation which operates the mine, a concentrator plant, a smelter, and a refinery. The mine has been in production since 1906, and has resulted in the creation of a pit over 0.75 miles (1,210 m) deep, 2.5 miles (4 km) wide, and covering 1,900 acres. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 under the name Bingham Canyon Open Pit Copper Mine. The mine experienced a massive landslide in April 2013 and a smaller slide in September 2013.
Daniel Guggenheim was an American mining magnate and philanthropist, and a son of Meyer and Barbara Guggenheim. By 1910 he directed the world's most important group of mining interests. He was forced out in 1922 and retired to philanthropy to promote aviation. His achievements include a system for innovation, as well as leadership in amicable labor relations, and major roles in aviation and rocketry.
The Anaconda Copper Mining Company, known as the Amalgamated Copper Company from 1899 to 1915, was an American mining company headquartered in Butte, Montana. It was one of the largest trusts of the early 20th century and one of the largest mining companies in the world for much of the 20th century.
Sewell is an uninhabited Chilean mining town located on the slopes of the Andes in the commune of Machalí in Cachapoal Province, Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins Region, at an altitude of between 2,000 and 2,250 metres. In 2006, it was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is known as a former company town, developed by Braden Copper Company for housing the workers associated with the operations of El Teniente, the largest underground copper mine in the world.
El Teniente is an underground copper mine located in the Chilean Andes, 2,300 m (7,500 ft) above mean sea level. It is in the commune of Machalí in Cachapoal Province, Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins Region, near the company town of Sewell. This was established for the workers and their families.
El Salvador mine is a combined open pit and underground copper mine located in Chile and owned by the state owned copper mining company Codelco. The mine is located in the company town of El Salvador.
The 1945 El Teniente mining accident, known locally as the Smoke Tragedy, is the largest mining accident in metal extraction in the history of Chile and, as of 2005, worldwide. It happened on June 19, 1945, in Chile's El Teniente mine in the Andes, which belonged to Braden Copper Company, a subsidiary of Kennecott Copper Corporation, both of the United States. A total of 355 men died, largely because of a nearby fire whose smoke trapped the workers in tunnels and resulted in carbon monoxide poisoning. Another 747 men were injured by the smoke.
Escondida is a copper mine at 3,100 metres (10,200 ft) elevation in the Atacama Desert in Antofagasta Region, Chile.
Los Pelambres mine is a copper mine located in the north-central of Chile in Coquimbo Region. It is one of the largest copper reserves in the world, having estimated reserves of 4.9 billion tonnes of ore grading 0.65% copper.
Potrerillos is a ghost town in the interior of Atacama Region, Chile. Potrerillos became established as mining camp in the 1920s by Andes Copper Mining Company.
In an effort to thwart statehood and Alaskan home rule from Washington D.C., the Alaska Syndicate, was formed in 1906 by J. P. Morgan and Simon Guggenheim. The Syndicate purchased the Kennicott-Bonanza copper mine and had majority control of the Alaskan steamship and rail transportation. The syndicate also was in charge of a large part of the salmon industry.
Barton Sewell was an American industrialist, with investments in mining and smelting throughout the Americas. Sewell was instrumental in the funding of the El Teniente copper mine in Chile. Sewell, Chile was named in his honor shortly after his death.
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