Codelco eyes Friedland’s pulse power tech to boost mine efficiencies

Codelco, the world’s biggest copper producer, is considering adopting technology being developed by Robert Friedland’s I-Pulse Inc. that uses electricity to shatter rocks.

Maximo Pacheco, Codelco’s executive chairman, said he had visited I-Pulse laboratories in Toulouse, France and formed “very good relations” with Friedland. While nothing has been formalized, the two companies “have a lot of interest in working together,” he said in an interview from Santiago.

Friedland confirmed the talks. “We’re in discussions with Codelco and many others about the use of I-Pulse technology,” the billionaire founder of Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. said Wednesday by telephone.

I-Pulse, which Friedland describes as a private American unicorn, uses surges of electricity known as pulsed power in applications across industries including mining, manufacturing and water. One of its ventures, I-ROX, uses the technology to shatter rocks at mines to cut energy usage and emissions, attracting investors including BHP Group and a European fund tied to Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

Other miners including Rio Tinto Group, Newmont Corp. and Teck Resources Ltd. have also invested in I-Pulse, Friedland said.

Cleaning up mines is key for gaining social acceptance for expansions of metals like copper in the energy transition. That’s especially important for state-owned Codelco and other Chilean miners whose declining ore quality means they have to dig up more rock to produce the same amount of metal.

“The tremendous demand for critical minerals — copper and lithium — require new forms of mining,” Pacheco said. “I-Pulse and Robert Friedland have a lot of experience and are doing very interesting things. We are following them very closely.”

(By James Attwood)