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United States
Bingham Canyon (Kennecott) Mine

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 Location:
33 km SW from Salt Lake City, Utah, United States

  Address:
12800 S. Bacchus Hwy (U-111) Bingham Canyon
Bingham Canyon
Utah, United States
Phone801-204-2025
EmailEmail
WebsiteWeb
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  • Overview
  • Owners
  • Geology
  • Mining
  • Processing
  • Production
  • Reserves
  • Financials
  • Fleet
  • Personnel
  • Filings & News

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Overview

StageProduction
Mine TypeOpen Pit
Commodities
  • Copper
  • Gold
  • Silver
  • Molybdenum
Mining Method
  • Truck & Shovel / Loader
Processing
  • Crush & Screen plant
  • Smelting
  • Flotation
Mine Life2032
The Bingham Canyon Mine is one of the largest open-pit mines in the world, measuring over 4 kilometers wide and 1,200 meters deep.
Latest NewsRio Tinto starts tellurium production at Kennecott     May 11, 2022


Owners

Source: p. 9
CompanyInterestOwnership
Rio Tinto plc 100 % Indirect
The Bingham Canyon Mine is wholly owned by Kennecott Utah Copper LLC.

Deposit Type

  • Porphyry

Source: Source p.10-11

Summary:

The Bingham Canyon deposit is a classic porphyry copper deposit containing economic values of copper, molybdenum, gold, silver, and historic lead and zinc production. Peripheral copper-gold skarns, lead-zinc fissures, and disseminated gold deposits are also associated with this copper porphyry system.

Porphyry dikes, faults, and quartz veins are steeply dipping and have two dominant orientations; north-northeast– and northwest-striking. Dikes have a north-northeast strike but they thicken and develop northwest-trending apophyses and host high-grade copper-gold zones at intersections with northwest-faults, indicating that magmatic-hydrothermal fluids were focused by these structural intersections.

Vein truncation relationships coupled with abrupt changes in copper-gold grades, sulfide ratios, and potassic alteration intensity at porphyry intrusive contacts indicate that the mass of introduced copper and gold decreased significantly during successive porphyry intrusive-hydrothermal cycles, presumably due to depletion of metals and volatiles in the underlying magma chamber.


Mining Methods

  • Truck & Shovel / Loader

Source:

Summary:

Kennecott is a fully integrated mining operation just outside Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.

Mining operations at Kennecott is deployed via conventional open pit method and is carried out a sequence of drilling, blasting, loading, hauling, crushing and conveying 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.

On average, 200 holes 55 feet deep are drilled in a typical day. Each hole is packed with 1,200 pounds of special blasting agents. Explosives are carried out twice a day.

Loading to 320 tons haulage trucks performed by electric shovels (the largest electric shovel has a 56-cubic-yard dipper)

In July 2021, the company announced the approval of a $108 million investment to support an underground mine below the existing open pit, with studies due to be complete by 2024. Potential underground mining would occur concurrently with open pit operations and result in increased copper output.


Crushing and Grinding
Crusher / Mill TypeModelSizePowerQuantity
Gyratory crusher 1

Summary:

At the In-pit gyratory crusher, approximately 150,000 tons of ore per day reduces to pieces about 10 inches in diameter. Then crushed oree is transported the by a five-mile conveyer system: three miles through a tunnel in the mountain and two miles above ground to the Copperton Concentrator.


Processing

  • Crush & Screen plant
  • Smelting
  • Flotation


Summary:

The second step of the production process is ore concentrating, which separates valuable minerals from the ore into a concentrated liquid.

The crushed ore is turned into a slurry and transport it to flotation cells. Than additional reagents added to produce a bubbly froth. Ore particles containing most of the valuable minerals adhere to the bubbles, which float over the sides of the flotation cells. Then material is collecting and filtering.

The concentrate, which contains about 26 percent copper and by-products such as gold and silver, moves through a pipeline to Kennecott’s smelter, located about 17 miles to the north, for further processing.

The next stage, smelting, is a process of heating and smelting the copper concentrates to cause a chemical reaction, which removes the copper from other elements in the ore. At the smelter, we produce large 750-pound anodes and transport them by rail to the Refinery. The copper is 99 percent pure at this stage.

The smelter at Kennecott captures 99.9 percent of the sulfur in the feed, making it one of the cleanest in the world. The smelter also recovers heat from the furnaces, which generates 60 percent of the facility’s total electricity.

At the refining stage, the copper is in anode form. We subject 750-pound copper anode plates to an electric current for ten days and turn them into two 300-pound copper cathodes. This further separates the copper from other metals – the result is copper that is 99.99 percent pure.

The last step in the production process is to stamp each bar with Kennecott's brand, the lot number, the weight and the fineness of the metal — that is, the percentage of gold or silver in the bar.


Production:

CommodityUnits2021202020192018201720162015
Copper kt 15914018720414915392
Gold koz 140171235197178153131
Silver koz 2,2282,2052,8152,5202,1561,9431,458
Molybdenum kt 7.620115.852.87.6
All production numbers are expressed as metal in concentrate.


Reserves at December 31, 2021:

CategoryOreTypeTonnage CommodityGradeRecoverable Metal
Proven & Probable In-Situ (OP) 541 Mt Copper 0.44 % 2.117 Mt
Proven & Probable In-Situ (OP) 541 Mt Gold 0.17 g/t 2.095 M oz
Proven & Probable In-Situ (OP) 541 Mt Silver 2.22 g/t 28.525 M oz
Proven & Probable In-Situ (OP) 541 Mt Molybdenum 0.029 % 0.089 Mt
Measured & Indicated In-Situ (OP) 250 Mt Copper 0.39 %
Measured & Indicated In-Situ (UG) 10 Mt Copper 3.59 %
Measured & Indicated In-Situ (OP) 250 Mt Gold 0.2 g/t
Measured & Indicated In-Situ (UG) 10 Mt Gold 1.74 g/t
Measured & Indicated In-Situ (OP) 250 Mt Silver 1.76 g/t
Measured & Indicated In-Situ (UG) 10 Mt Silver 20.9 g/t
Measured & Indicated In-Situ (OP) 250 Mt Molybdenum 0.017 %
Total Resource In-Situ (OP) 256 Mt Copper 0.39 %
Total Resource In-Situ (UG) 20 Mt Copper 3.64 %
Total Resource In-Situ (OP) 256 Mt Gold 0.2 g/t
Total Resource In-Situ (UG) 20 Mt Gold 1.61 g/t
Total Resource In-Situ (OP) 256 Mt Silver 1.75 g/t
Total Resource In-Situ (UG) 20 Mt Silver 20.95 g/t
Total Resource In-Situ (OP) 256 Mt Molybdenum 0.017 %

Financials:

Units2021202020192018201720162015
Capital expenditures M USD 411  618  444  318   249   333   408  
Revenue M USD 2,528  1,529  1,879  1,862   1,352   1,243   1,403  
After-tax Income M USD 513  149  397  293   78   -228   44  
EBITDA M USD 1,142  588  843  785   539   126   437  


Heavy Mobile Equipment as of June 8, 2018:
Source: Source
HME TypeSizeQuantity
Truck (haul) 320 t 100

Mine Management:

Job TitleNameProfileRef. Date
Chemical Laboratory Superintendent Cris Dew LinkedIn May 4, 2022
General Manager Technical Geraldine Lyons LinkedIn May 4, 2022
Maintenance Superintendent Thomas Dormenval LinkedIn May 4, 2022
Mine Planning Superintendent Eric Hoffmann LinkedIn May 4, 2022
Mine Scheduling and Projects Manager Braden York LinkedIn May 4, 2022
Mobile Equipment Maintenance Superintendent Steve Woodruff LinkedIn May 4, 2022
Technical Manager Erick Franco LinkedIn May 4, 2022
Underground General Manager Nathan Foster LinkedIn May 4, 2022

Staff:

EmployeesYear
2,051 2021
2,171 2020
2,066 2019
1,993 2018
1,734 2017
1,638 2016
1,793 2015

Corporate Filings & Presentations:

DocumentYear
Annual Report 2021
Annual Report 2020
Year-end Mineral Reserves 2020
Annual Report 2019
Annual Report 2018
Annual Report 2017
Annual Report 2016
Annual Report 2015
Annual Report 2014
Press Release 2012
Corporate Presentation 2009

News:

NewsDate
Rio Tinto starts tellurium production at Kennecott May 11, 2022
Murray & Roberts’ Mining Platform awarded two contracts to the value of r1,2 billion August 3, 2021
Rio Tinto progresses studies for potential underground mining at Kennecott copper July 22, 2021
Rio Tinto to build new tellurium plant at Kennecott mine March 8, 2021
Rio Tinto suspends Kennecott operations following earthquake March 19, 2020

Aerial view:

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