This agreement seeks to promote competitive and environmentally responsible mining, minimizing its carbon footprint through electrification.

Chilean company Codelco signed a memorandum of understanding with Japanese companies Toyota Chile and Mitsui on Wednesday for strategic collaboration in the development and testing of sustainable mobility solutions in its mining divisions.

This agreement seeks to promote competitive and environmentally responsible mining, minimizing its carbon footprint through electrification.

The initiative aims to generate synergies between Toyota's experience in developing zero- and low-emission vehicles, Mitsui Chile's experience in strategic alliances and Codelco's track record in managing world-class mining operations.

The project aims to share knowledge, conduct studies and conduct pilot tests in the field, which will allow the performance and adaptability of zero and low emission vehicles to be evaluated in Codelco's divisions.

Thanks to this agreement, Toyota Chile and Mitsui Chile will obtain a comprehensive view of the technical needs required by this type of vehicle in the mining environment, considering factors such as energy consumption, distances traveled and usage times, thus accelerating the development of technologies in line with the conditions of the industry.

COLLABORATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

This collaborative effort is a demonstration of Codelco, Toyota Chile and Mitsui Chile's commitment to promoting sustainable solutions, aligning their experience and capabilities to implement advances in electrification in the most important productive sector of the Chilean economy, according to the three companies.

"The agreement not only opens the door to new technologies for electromobility in mining, but also allows us to advance in our purpose of being a pillar of sustainable development in Chile and the world," said Felipe Lagno, Corporate Manager of Innovation and Technology at Codelco.

For his part, Toyota's CEO in Chile, Takuya Takahashi, has highlighted that this agreement allows them to advance towards their goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, taking advantage of all their capacity that they will make available to Codelco, to jointly generate sustainable mobility within mining operations.

Finally, Mitsui Chile CEO and President Kazutaka Shiba said that this partnership has a significance that goes beyond this particular project.

"We are confident that this joint effort will create lasting value, not only for our companies, but also for the communities we serve and the environment we seek to protect," he said.