The degradation of natural resources, specifically the decline in the mineral grade is a normal process to which every mining business is exposed and which is the result of the exhaustion of its mining reserves. This has meant that many mining companies have seen the supply of ore to their facilities reduced and are evaluating obtaining copper from low-grade resources and, in some cases, from materials that at some point in the useful life of the deposit were considered waste as a consequence of the process and / or economic conditions.

These materials, normally deposited in surrounding areas to the operations, represent an interesting business potential to use available capacities in the plant since they can be processed at marginal cost, where the mine expense component is reduced only to the item of transport between the stock and the primary crushing feed box.