A US$227-million expansion is planned at the Bingham Canyon copper mine in Utah operated by Kennecott Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of RTZ of London.
The expansion will boost production by 35,000 tons of ore per day. Construction is scheduled to begin in June, pending permit approval.
More than 2,000 jobs are provided by the Bingham operation. Kennecott President Frank Joklik said the increased production rate will not shorten the 25-year anticipated mine life because material previously planned to be mined as waste will be processed as ore.
The company plans to expand the existing coarse ore stockpile facility, add a fourth grinding line at the Copperton concentrator and a new flotation circuit, expand and upgrade the existing molybdenite recovery plant and install a fourth filter press at the smelter.
Processing capacity of the concentrator will increase from 77,000 to 112,000 tons per day. This amount plus the 30,000 tons of ore per day that will continue to be processed at the Bonneville and Magma concentrators will boost overall Kennecott copper production in Utah from 235,000 to 270,000 tons copper per year.
In 1988, Kennecott completed a modernization of its Utah copper operation at a cost of US$400 million. That work included an in-pit crusher, a conveyor system to transport ore, slurry pipeline systems and a filter plant at the smelter.
The latest work is a further expansion of the modernization with emphasis on the Copperton concentrator.
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