Copper smelter won’t be built

A copper smelter planned for Texas City, Tex., will not be constructed by Mitsubishi Materials Corp. of Japan.

Estimated cost of the facility, first announced by Mitsubishi’s U.S. subsidiary Texas Copper Corp. in 1989, was US$260 million. Capacity of the smelter, to have been built south of Houston, would have been 182,000 tonnes annually.

In part, the delay in receiving permits and opposition from residents and environmentalists did in the project. Mitsubishi planned to use its continuous smelting technology to produce copper.