A typical copper porphyry deposit, such as that found at the Mission Complex, can contain other minerals including silver, molybdenum, lead, zinc and manganese, and other elements such as traces of arsenic and tungsten. The Mission Complex currently operates a molybdenum recovery circuit.

The Mission Complex is a commercial open pit copper mine. The facility is located near Sahuarita, Arizona (18 miles south of Tucson). The mine site is spread out over an area of approximately 19,000 acres (29.7 square miles) and includes an open pit.

The Mission Complex currently consists of an open pit copper/molybdenum mine that involves drilling, blasting, loading, and haulage activities to both waste rock dumps and crushers. The waste rock is not processed further.

Ore is crushed via the primary gyrotory crusher, rod mill and ball mill. The ground ore is pumped as a slurry to froth flotation cells, where chalcopyrite is separated from non-copper bearing minerals.

In the flotation stage, the chalcopyrite attaches to the air bubbles and is skimmed off. The first stage, ”roughing,” removes approximately 88% of chalcopyrite. The skimmed materials from the roughing stages are reground and sent to secondary froth flotation cells (two stages). Tailings are collected from the roughing and secondary flotation cells and gravity-fed to the tailings ponds. For final processing, the copper concentrate (containing approximately 27% copper) is sent off-site for smelting.