On 2002, the Canadian Company, Barrick Gold, ceased its operations at the mine of “El Indio”, located at the Mountain chain of Elqui. But now, the company is planning a new Gold mining project, which lies at 30 km at the south of El Indio.

The research of this project named as “Alturas”, started in 2011, and now the company is waiting to begin the second stage of the process.

The project would be executed in a period of five years, even though that the onsite work will be in summertime (september- May). But, the company indicated that if the works run without problems, the time could be reduce to four or even three years.

At present, Barrick Gold counts with other similar projects on the area, like Veladero, Pascua Lama and Tambo. Besides El Indio which stopped producing in 2002. In addition, the company controls almost the total of the perimeter of 140 km of longitude at El Indio belt.