DOWNLOAD THE MINING EXECUTIVE APP NOW
"Global Mining Descisions in Your Palms"
Oyu Tolgoi LLC Mine CEO, Armando Torres received BloombergTVM Best Executive of the Year Award.
Armando has been named the Best Executive of the year at the 6th BloombergTVM Awards. Heading Oyu Tolgoi, one of the largest investments in the history of Mongolian mining, Armando has a huge mandate for the Mongolian people: that of ensuring success and return on investment to all stakeholders.
The Oyu Tolgoi project has contributed significantly to the country’s economy and has spent approximately $ 8 billion in direct investment in Mongolia. “The success of our company is critical to shareholders, the Government of Mongolia, the Turquoise Border Resources, Rio Tinto, suppliers, entrepreneurs, and most importantly, with the cooperation of our local stakeholders.
All of our company’s success is largely tied to shareholders, the Government of Mongolia, the Turquoise Border Resources, Rio Tinto, suppliers, entrepreneurs, and most importantly the cooperation of our local stakeholders. “, Armando was once quoted saying. People took to social media to congratulate the mining executive for the hard work he has put to ensure Oyu Tolgoi becomes a success mining story besides the challenges faced. Armando has been modelled by peers as a role model leader who always care for his teams with other hoping to see this great achievement translate to the financial success of the company on share pricing.
Who is Armando Torre’s…..?
Armado is the current CEO of Uyu Tolgoi, not known by many outside the mining circles but leading a huge mining investment project for Rio Tinto and Partners in the Mongolia Gobi desert. Oyu Tolgoi is an industrial complex in its own right having a copper open pit mine, concentrator, logistics, camp and underground mine development project (one of the largest developments in the world) located in South Gobi, Mongolia.
He is a member and Board Director of Oyu Tolgoi LLC and Executive Director Responsible for Oyu Tolgoi operations and Underground Mine Development. A Chemical Engineer by qualification, he has over 25 years’ experience spanning in chemical industry, refining and mining, managing operations in several countries (Brazil, Spain, Australia, Canada and Mongolia) always supporting inclusion and diversity. He has extensive experience in promoting transformation in several operations improving productivity, efficiency, employee engagement and developing local leaders resulting in profitable and safe operations. Expert in lean manufacturing and adaptable to different cultures and different organizations. He as also worked as the Chief Operations Officer (COO) for Rio Tinto Alcan managing all the refineries in Australia and Canada.
Oyu Tolgoi Mining Project
Underneath the golden sand of the Gobi lays one of the greatest copper-gold deposits ever discovered. Having taken close to 60 years from discovery to large scale investment, the Oyu Tolgoi is a copper and gold mine located in the Gobi Desert located 550 km south of Ulaanbaatar and employs more than 16,000 workers.
The mine is the world’s largest undeveloped copper mine. Erdenes Oyu Tolgoi LLC is a Government of Mongolia state-owned company which owns 34% of the project with the remaining 66% being owned by Turquoise Hill Resources to which Rio Tinto has an indirect ownership of 50.8% in Turquoise Hill Resources. Oyu Tolgoi open pit mine commenced mining its first ore in July 2012. The open pit mine extracts ore in 15-metre-high benches, with excavator to dump truck and electric rope shovel to dump truck combination. The pit currently covers 2.2 by 2.5 km area and reached 690 metre in depth. The size, magnitude and scale of the facilities built at Oyu Tolgoi are truly remarkable. The US$1.2 Billion Oyu Tolgoi concentrator is the biggest industrial complex in Mongolia, whereas the 2.7 km long overland conveyer, carries the ore from the open pit mine. Construction of the Concentrator alone required 62 thousand tonnes of concrete and 23 thousand tonnes of steel, three times more than the Eiffel Tower. During the construction period, workforce moved more than six million cubic metres of earth to prepare for mining and laid enough cable to reach all the way to Ulaanbaatar, located at 550 km distance.
The concentrator is a colossal industrial complex, capable of processing 100 thousand tonne ore a day. At the same time, the underground mine construction is well progressing. The potential scale of Oyu Tolgoi was unprecedented in Mongolia’s history, and it spurred a wholesale re-examination of the country’s legal and regulatory framework to support development of “megaprojects.” In December 2016 in Ulaanbaatar, Oyu Tolgoi’s shareholders, Rio Tinto, Turquoise Hill Resources, and Erdenes Oyu Tolgoi signed a US$4.4 billion financing package to develop the underground mine. Oyi Tolgoi has been hailed for its SmartCap safety technology to significantly reduce risks of safety.
Shaft 1 for the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine was completed in 2009 reaching final depth of 1,385 metres. Shaft 2, 3 and 5 are under construction with Shaft 2 headframe extending 96 metres above the surface. Underground mine will tap into 80 per cent of the value of the Oyu Tolgoi mine. It will employ a block caving method. The main central heating plant has four state-of-the-art boilers with a total capacity of 72MW and provides central heating and hot tap water to consumers, by burning 15,000 tonnes of coal a year. The plant has a multi-filter flue-gas stack, 100-metre-high, therefore ensures lower emission to the atmosphere and is considered as environmentally friendly. The project is so massive that it has employed the services of 1,146 suppliers and is projected to produce 125,000-155,000 tonnes of copper and 180,000-220,000 ounces of gold only in 2019.