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Location: 33 km SW from Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
4700 Daybreak ParkwaySouth JordanUtah, United States84009
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Kennecott Utah Copper LLC is the operator of the Kennecott (Bingham Canyon) mine.
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.The deposit is contained within a 4.5 km x 4.5 km area with a maximum thickness of 900 m and average overburden cover of 800 m.The Lower Commercial Skarn (LCS) and North Rim Skarn (NRS) deposits are within the current operations of the Bingham Canyon Mine.The LCS and NRS deposits are located in the Bingham mining district southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. The Bingham mining district is dominated by the Bingham Canyon coppermolybdenum-gold porphyry system, which consists of the Eocene monzonite-quartz monzonite Bingham Stock and deformed siliciclastic and carbonate country rock of the Palaeozoic Bingham Mine Formation. The underground resource is hosted in two main skarn beds. The LCS is hosted in mineralised skarn of the Lower Commercial limestone, while the NRS deposit is hosted in mineralised skarn of the Lower Jordan Limestone (LJLS). Both are units of the Lower Bingham Mine Formation. This unit is proximal to the Bingham Canyon porphyry system and has been altered to copper-gold hosting calc-silicate skarn through prograde metasomatism with localized retrograde massive sulphide and siderite. This unit has been variably folded and faulted prior to mineralisation, resulting in fold thickening and repetition of the units across faults.The LCS and NRS deposits lies in the footwall of the southwest dipping Midas thrust fault, west of the older northeast striking and steeply dipping oblique transverse Verona fault. The LCS and NRS deposits are bounded to the south by the Bingham Canyon porphyry monzonite and the Midas fault, open to the north at depth. Paleozoic country rock within the LCS and NRS are folded in an asymmetric anticline, slightly overturned to the east, with a gentle plunge to the north.DimensionsThe LCS Mineral Resource is contained within a tabular zone approximately 75 m thick and 200 m x 400 m in size. The resource area is flat lying.The NRS Mineral Resource is contained within a roughly tabular zone dipping moderately northwest, approximately 50 m to 100 m thick, extending 1,000 m along strike, and 900 m down dip.The LCS and NRS Mineral Resource is located beneath the Bingham Canyon Mine open pit, at approximately the 3,200 level, immediately adjacent to the active underground drainage gallery workings.
The Kennecott Bingham Canyon open pit Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves are contained within the Bingham Canyon copper, gold, silver and molybdenum porphyry deposit and are mined by an open pit.The Kennecott Bingham Canyon underground Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves are contained within the Bingham Canyon mining district. These resources are mined using a sub-level, long hole open stoping method. Mining areas include the North Rim (NRS) and Lower Commercial (LCS) skarns.Open PitMining involves 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.Following the blasts, electric shovels load the ore and waste onto the haulage trucks, which transport the ore to the in-pit crusher and the non-economic material to rock repositories.Kennecott’s fleet of haul trucks and all heavy machinery at the mine are all fueled by renewable diesel, which being used is a combination of 90% soybean and the remainder animal fat and used cooking oil.Kennecott Open Pit ExtensionThe project scope includes mine stripping activities and some infrastructure development, including tailings facility expansion. The project will allow mining to continue into a new area of the orebody between 2026 and 2032.Stripping will continue through 2027 with sustainable ore production from the second phase of the pushback expected to be reached in H2 2027.Rio Tinto is progressing feasibility studies to extend open pit mining beyond 2032. If approved, the planned mine expansion could produce around 1.5 million additional tonnes of copper and extend the mine’s life to approximately 2040.UndergroundThe selected mining method North Rim Skarn (NRS) and Lower Commercial (LCS) skarns is bottom up, sub-level, long hole open stoping, using a primary secondary sequence with cemented backfill.Stope dimensions are set at 22.9 m high, 15.2 m wide, and a variable length between 15.2 m to 9.1 m. Permanent development needed to access the deposit will be 6.1 m high by 5.5 m wide, reducing to 5.5 m high by 5.5 m wide for development in the orebody. Stope ground support has been accounted for to aid in stability and is planned for the backs and sides of the upper drift, as well as the brow from which mucking will occur. External dilution (10% for secondaries, 2.5% for primaries) has been applied to the estimate at zero grade based on an evaluation of the geotechnical parameters with established industry empirical dilution guidelines. Given the arrangement of the mine, the majority of waste dilution is estimated to take place within secondary stopes from the adjacent backfilled primaries with a small amount within primaries from the stope in front. Ore dilution is expected to occur within primary stopes from the adjacent secondaries with an overall net zero change in ore tonnes.Two distinct recovery factors have been applied to the estimate, the first being a stope shape factor (92.5%) to deduct areas of the stope which cannot be practically drilled such as the stope “shoulders”. The second being a mining recovery factor (90%) to account for drilled and blasted material or dilution which cannot be mucked out from the stope.Minimum mining widths have been established and applied to the mine design which underpins the estimate. These are based on the dimensions of the existing mechanized mining fleet, and the expected additional equipment needed to operate the mine (Including allowance for Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) equipment size).Underground production within LCS started in February 2023, and first production was achieved in June 2024, marking the mine's return to underground production after more than four decades. The LCS is expected to deliver a total of around 30 thousand tonnes of additional mined copper through the period to 2027.First production from NRS occurred in December 2025.InfrastructureExisting site facilities are adequate for NRS and LCS production. All personnel and materials access the operation via the open pit and surface operations. Recovery of the stated Reserve is dependent on continued pit operations at Kennecott.Ore material is rehandled at the drainage gallery portal using open pit equipment and hauled to the open pit crusher to be blended with open pit material.All downstream processing will be done with the existing on site infrastructure.
At the in-pit gyratory crusher, approximately 150,000 tons of ore per day are reduced to pieces about 10 inches in diameter. The crushed ore is then transported by a five-mile conveyor system: three miles through a tunnel in the mountain and two miles above ground to the Copperton Concentrator.All milling is done by the Copperton Concentrator’s four grinding lines consisting of three 10.4 m and one 11 m SAG mill each feeding two ball mills.
The operation includes Copperton concentrator, Garfield smelter, refinery, and precious metals plant and tailings storage facilities.In-pit crushed ore is turned into a slurry and transported to the Copperton Concentrator, where copper and molybdenum concentrates are produced through a froth flotation process. 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.Flotation is comprised of a bulk circuit having rougher, scavenger and cleaner lines feeding the Moly Plant where molybdenum disulphide concentrate is produced and bagged for toll roasting. A 25% copper concentrate is pumped 28 km to the Smelter where it is filtered and stockpiled. Garfield SmelterThe 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, large 750-pound anodes are produced and transported by rail to the refinery. At this stage, the copper is 99 percent pure.The smelter processes copper concentrate that originates primarily from the Copperton Concentrator and periodically from other mine and mineral processing facilities, along with flux, coolants, and other reagents in order to produce anode copper, sulfuric acid, and rhenium.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.RefineryAt the refining stage, the copper is in anode form. 750-pound copper anode plates are subjected to an electric current for ten days, transforming them into two 300-pound copper cathodes. This process further separates the copper from other metals, resulting in copper that is 99.99 percent pure.Precious Metals Plant The Rio Tinto Kennecott process begins with oxidative leaching in an autoclave to dissolve copper-rich anode slime (Cu > 90%), facilitating the recovery of precious metals. Following this, a filtration step separates the solutions containing dissolved metals from solid residues. Wet chlorination is then employed to dissolve precious metals and selenium. Wet chlorination of decopperized slimes is achieved through the metered addition of hydrogen peroxide to agitated slurry of slimes suspended in an aqueous solution of hydrochloric acid. The process of wet chlorination oxidizes and solubilizes the gold and selenium in the slimes. Hydrogen peroxide is used as the oxidant and hydrochloric acid provides the chloride for gold complex solubility.Lead is precipitated by adding sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) to form lead carbonate (PbCO3), which aids in extracting other precious metals. Ammonia leaching dissolves silver, and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) combined with sugar is used to precipitate it from the ammonia solution. The precipitated silver is melted in an electric furnace to produce high-quality silver ingots. Solvent extraction is utilized to separate remaining precious metals – gold, silver, platinum, and palladium – from the solution, followed by reductive precipitation with oxalic acid and NaOH to obtain gold in powder form, which is then melted in an electric furnace to create high-quality gold ingots. Finally, selenium is separated via reductive precipitation, while by-products containing gold, silver, platinum and palladium and refined externally to recover these precious metals.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.
The site holds surface water rights and shares that provide up to 80.9 GL per year of supply. Annual operational usage may be lower in a given year than the rights and shares provision, reective of the conditions experienced during the year. Where annual operational usage remains below the water rights and shares provision, bypass discharge to the Great Salt Lake is permitted as a benecial use. The long-term average runoff for the catchments associated with the surface rights and shares is estimated to be 800 GL per year. Kennecott will reduce average annual imported water per ton of ore milled by 5% over the 2014-18 baseline of 393 gal/ton (1,487L/ton) at the Copperton Concentrator by 2023.With the exception of 2019, annual concentrator water intensity has remained above the 2014-2018 target baseline. Required changes to the concentrator process during 2020 resulted in increased water usage compared to the initial target baseline. Kennecott’s water usage has trended down since the implementation of these changes. Kennecott’s commitment to improve water efficiency through the concentrator successfully reduced intensity in 2022 and 2023 to approximately 10% lower than the period peak recorded in 2021.
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