Construction is well underway of a new copper concentrate leaching and direct electrowinning facility at the Morenci, Arizona, mine of Phelps Dodge Mining Co., a part of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. This concentrate leaching plant, scheduled to start up in the third quarter of this year, will be capable of treating about 217,000 tonnes of copper concentrate a year while producing acid for the leaching facilities on site. The facility will employ proprietary technology the company developed and demonstrated at its copper mine in Bagdad, Arizona, to process mixed primary and secondary copper ores. The new concentrate leaching facilities will be incorporated into the existing leaching and electrowinning complex at Morenci, which is the world's largest. Production from these facilities will replace an expected decline in Morenci s heap leach output later this decade.
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