Current Energy Requirements in the Copper Producing Industries

An analysis of energy usage in the production of refined cathode copper was made from mining ore to cathode copper. In mining copper ore the greatest energy consumers are ore hauling and blasting. Another important factor is the “recovery efficiency” of the metallurgical processes used to extract the copper. The mining and mineral concentrating energies are directly proportional to the “recovery efficiency,” with a typical mining operation requiring about 20 million Btu/ton of cathode copper produced. Mineral concentrating was also found to be a large energy consumer, requiring about 43 million Btu/ton of cathode copper. Some possibilities for energy savings in the mineral processing area include use of autogenous grinding and computer control for optimizing grinding operations, improved classifier efficiency, and optimizing the entire concentrator plant performance by interrelating all plant operations.