The deal is being done through a 50-50 partnership with Saudi Arabian company MSB Holdings.

It could face two "serious" charges around its Carmen de Andacollo copper-gold mine in Chile's central Coquimbo region.

Over an approximate 20-year mine life, the Santo Tomas project would have total payable copper production (in concentrate) of 4.75 billion lb.

Previous recipients of the award include Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

The US Department of the Interior found that as many as 66 communities whose subsistence-style living activities could be affected.

The company has nearly tripled its measured and indicated resource at the Cactus porphyry project.

Kupferschiefer project aims to revisit archive geological data and reinterpret it using petroleum and mineral system approaches, creating maps of mineral prospective areas within the Central European Basin.

An increase in mining activity partly offset a drop in sectors like manufacturing.