BNamericas reported that hydrometallurgy copper processing has lower costs than concentration.

Mr Jorge Menacho technical manager at Chilean engineering company De Re Metallica said that "Concentration is intensive in the use of power a high cost input right now and in that scenario hydrometallurgy has certain advantages as a result of its lower costs. However, hydrometallurgy for the production of fine copper is still playing a secondary role when compared with concentration mainly due to currently high copper prices.

Mr Menacho said that "Today, close to 70% of copper in the world is turned out through concentration. And with the current scenario of high prices, concentration remains the preferred processing alternative for new projects at the expense of hydrometallurgy."

He said that "In this context, for example, Escondida has plans to build 5 to 10 new concentrators in the following years. Hydrometallurgy still plays an important role in copper cathodes production but it's in a secondary position in terms of flotation concentration alternatives."

Mr Menacho said that a significant part of the world's copper reserves is primary sulfide ore which is another factor that makes concentration the preferred alternative. Concentration is a technology 100% proven for the processing of sulfide ore. Flotation works perfectly with chalcopyrite but there is still no mature hydrometallurgical process available for industrial use in processing that kind of ore.

He said that this is a crosscurrent that can be solved at any time, since there are a lot of people carrying out research to come up with an efficient hydrometallurgical alternative for low grade ores. And this poses a great alternative for mining companies, since the economics involved in concentration start to fail when it comes to reserves containing less than 0.2% copper of which there is a lot in the world.

(Sourced from Business News Americas)