Antofagasta

Antofagasta exists because copper exists. This 126,049 km² strip of Atacama Desert—the driest place on Earth—concentrates nearly a third of global copper production, making it one of the most valuable pieces of real estate on the planet despite appearing lifeless from space. The region's metabolism runs on extraction: Antofagasta PLC (Chile's largest private copper miner after state-owned Codelco) produced 664,000 tonnes in 2024, generating $6.6 billion in revenue with 52% EBITDA margins. The $4.4 billion Nueva Centinela expansion (approved December 2023) will add 144,000 tonnes annually, betting that electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure will only increase copper's strategic importance. Yet extraction creates conflict: the Zaldívar mine narrowly avoided 2025 closure after indigenous Atacameño communities challenged its aquifer water rights, highlighting the biological paradox—in a desert where water is life, mining consumes it to produce metal that enables green energy elsewhere. South America's first hydrogen locomotive began operation at the FCAB rail yards in 2024, symbolizing the region's attempt to decarbonize the extraction of materials needed for global decarbonization. By 2026, Antofagasta will remain essential to the energy transition—the world literally cannot electrify without Chilean copper—but water scarcity and indigenous rights will increasingly constrain production growth. The region functions as a specialized extremophile: thriving in conditions that kill most economic activity, but vulnerable to the single resource on which it depends.