Technological and economic strategies for the optimization of Polish electrolytic copper production plants

Abstract The main aim of the paper is to present possible strategies of copper production, which the processing plant can implement, resulting from the technological and economic (market) factors. Such a way of the optimization of copper production process, is considered within the scope of ore extraction, ore concentration and metallurgical processing. The issue is presented on the example of KGHM “Polish Copper” S.A. which operates three mines, three concentrators and two smelters. Each concentrator treats one orebody, producing different bulk concentrates at different recoveries and grades. The effect is to determine the strategy of copper production and such strategy would determine the quality and quantity of concentrates, processed in each of three concentrators in the entire flow-sheet. The routing of the three concentrate streams to the two smelters is optimized using a set of models built with GAMS software. These models consider ore, concentrator process and smelting, and use metal production: (1) or profit maximization (2) as target function. Formulation of a relationship between copper concentrate grade and mass recovery is the major part of introduced model. Limitations determining the maximum copper grades in concentrates as well as relationships between copper grade β Cu and silver grade β Ag for each concentrate, were also introduced. Theoretical target concentrate grades were estimated for both high and low stock market copper and silver prices. Further sensitivity analysis of model for metal stock market prices and production costs was performed. It was conducted that generally for lower stock market prices, higher concentrate grade should be produced, whilst for the higher metal prices, lower concentrate grade was the optimal strategy.