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UNIVERSITY OF UTAH DEPARTMENT OF MINING ENGINEERING PRESENTATION to IMOA by Louie Cononelos “Kennecott Utah Copper-Sustainable Over Time PHOTOS/VIDEO AUDIO

This is a story that had its beginning

over 150 ago…and that story is still

being written today.

It began in Bingham Canyon, Utah

located about 26 miles southwest of Salt

Lake City, which was destined to become

one of the greatest “mining camps”

anywhere in the country.

Mining in Utah, which was part of

Spanish Mexico, can be traced back to

Spanish miners in the mid-1700s.

The start of mining in Utah, however, is

credited to the United States Army in

1863. Troops under the command of

Colonel Patrick Connor are credited

with the discovery of Utah’s first mining

claim and helping to form the first

mining company and mining district in

Bingham Canyon.

The early mining at Bingham was

underground with the exception of

placer mining.

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Bingham Canyon was a beehive of mining activity at the turn of the

Century. Dozens of small companies dug tunnels and sank shafts in the mountains where they were mining lead, silver and gold ores…but not the low- grade copper ores that were in abundance and considered a nuisance.

Then, along came Daniel C. Jackling, a

29-year-old metallurgical engineer, who with his partner, a mining engineer named Robert Gemmell, studied and assayed ore samples from the operations that dotted the canyon. They determined that there were vast tonnages of low- grade copper ore in the main mountain that divided the canyon…it was the kind of ore the mining companies tried to avoid because it interfered with the recovery of the metals they were mining.

Jackling’s vision was to mine and process this mountain of porphyry copper ore using steam shovels for removing the ore and waste, and steam locomotives to transport it from the mine to large scale mills. 3

This was the first time that mass production technology was used in copper mining. Mining experts of the day scoffed at his crazy idea…especially when 98 percent of the rock was waste.

Most investors also agreed that it was a bad idea.

But Jackling took some influential financiers to Bingham Canyon in June

1903 to convince them that his theory would work, and that handsome profits could be made by mining low grade ores containing 39 pounds of copper per ton.

Jackling’s determined conviction was good enough for the backers. They invested $500,000…enough to get

Jackling started…and that gave birth to the Utah Copper Company on June 4,

1903. That was the beginning of what was to become one of the greatest mining enterprises in the world.

Jackling and Gemmell went to work and built a small experimental plant, the

Copperton Mill, at the mouth of

Bingham Canyon. They were testing 4

new engineering technologies and theories to prove they could mine, crush, grind and process about 300 tons daily of low-grade copper ore and produce high- grade copper concentrate.

They did it and in its first year of operations showed a very handsome profit of $142,000. Some investors who initially were skeptical now wanted to come on board and invested an additional $5,000,000 for what would prove to be the ride of the decade.

Other companies were also interested in these massive low grade copper ores.

One of Jacking’s biggest competitors was the Boston Consolidated Mining

Company operated by Samuel

Newhouse.

There were about 40 companies in the

Bingham District mining underground for lead, silver, zinc and gold but only a few were interested in mining copper from the surface.

In 1906, these two mining giants started mining “The Hill”. Utah Copper purchased steam shovels with two-and- 5

half-yard dippers, like those digging the

Panama Canal, and steam locomotives with rail cars and started mining the mountain for the copper ore.

Boston Consolidated did the same and was the first to actually remove waste with steam shovels but Jacking’s Utah

Copper was the first to mine ore.

Jackling built a large 6,000 tpd mill near the town of Magna to replace the successful experimental mill and his rival Boston Consolidated built their

3,000 tpd Arthur Mill one mile away.

Demands for electricity were increasing, so Utah Copper built its own power plant near the Magna Mill.

Meanwhile, a smelter was being built by

American Smelting and Refining

Company near the Great Salt Lake to process copper concentrates from both

Utah Copper and Boston Consolidated into cakes of nearly pure copper.

To move the ore from Bingham to the new Magna Mill, the 20-mile Bingham and Garfield Railroad was constructed. 6

Meanwhile, Utah Copper was mining the lower portion of “The Hill”, and its major competitor, Boston Consolidated, was mining the upper portion. Clearly, this mountain wasn’t big enough for two large mining competitors.

Utah Copper purchased Boston

Consolidated in 1910.

From the vision of 1903 to the accomplishments of 1910, Utah Copper, through its acquisition, had grown to become part of the largest industrial mining complex in the world.

People from all over the world, most of them immigrants from Europe, Asia and

Mexico came seeking work and over 40 distinct ethnic groups lived in camps and towns throughout the mining district.

Jackling had proved that mass- production of low-grade porphyry copper ore, using revolutionary new processes; technologies and innovations would set new standards for the copper mining industry.

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Early on, even safety training was innovative, as evidenced by this 1913 “Rules and Regulations of the Mining Department.” Because of the multi- ethnic workforce, the manual was printed in English, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Italian and Japanese.

By 1914, the Mine had 23 steam shovels, 48 steam locomotives and more than 350 ore and waste rail cars.

The Magna Concentrator was expanded to process 12,000 tons of ore daily, and the Arthur Concentrator was expanded to 8,000 tons per day.

In a joint development between Utah Copper and ASARCO, the first acid plant was installed for pollution control at the Garfield Smelter.

By 1915 Utah Copper’s operations were so successful that the giant Kennecott Copper Corporation acquired 25 percent of the company.

World War I called for an increased demand for copper, and Utah Copper 8

was second only to the Anaconda Copper as a source for mined copper.

Following a post-war slump, in 1923, a major innovation in operations at both the Magna and Arthur mills involved a change from standard gravity separation to froth flotation, which dramatically improved copper recovery. By 1924, the crushing and grinding operations were expanded and new rotary car dumpers were installed in both mills

In 1920 electric service was introduced into the Mine and steam shovels were converted to electric power in 1923.

By 1928, steam locomotives in the Mine were replaced by electric locomotives.

In 1936, Kennecott acquired all the property and assets of Utah Copper.

And that same year, engineers devised a new process in the concentrator flotation circuits to recover and produce another valuable by-product: molybdenite concentrate, another product for sale.

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By 1939, everything was bigger, the Mine covered 648 acres.

Electric shovels with four-and-a-half cubic yard dippers loaded 80 to 100-ton capacity ore cars, or 70-ton side-dump waste cars. New 75 ton electric locomotives did the haulage in the mine.

Jackling, his Board and managers were proud to see his vision become reality through the accomplishments and innovations of his engineers and employees.

Innovations, such as the track shifter, improved mine production significantly. This equipment provided important track relocation for rail operations much more efficiently than labor-intensive hands-on manpower.

350-ton Mallet locomotives pulled 50, 100-ton ore cars from the Mine to the Magna and Arthur Concentrators,

The two mills followed almost identical procedures to crush, grind and process a combined 70,000 tons per day. 10

Copper concentrates produced at the Concentrators were hauled by rail to ASARCO’s Garfield Smelter for final processing.

In 1941…the nation went to war and demands for copper in the production of munitions and armament soared. Many men at Utah Copper left their jobs to serve their country, and women stepped in to take over many of the mining jobs. Like “Rosie the Riveter” or “Millie the Miner” women were a real force in wartime production.

Kennecott’s Utah Copper operations produced 320,000 tons of copper and Kennecott’s combined operations in Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada produced 637,000 tons of copper in 1943. During World War II, Bingham Canyon alone produced more than one third of the copper needed for the allies’ war efforts.

In 1944, increasing demands for electricity were met by Utah Copper’s new 50,000 kilowatt power plant, built just above the Magna Mill. 11

In 1946, Utah Copper drove a 4,650-foot tunnel through the mountain…it was a rail haulage short cut that greatly improved efficiency and reduced costs.

In 1947, the original Utah Copper Company was dissolved and became known as the Utah Copper Division of Kennecott Copper Corporation.

In 1949… the Mine continued to be the largest man-made excavation on earth, at a depth of more than 1800 feet. The electric shovels were bigger, with five and seven-yard dippers scooping ten tons of material in a single bite.

Ore and waste trains operated on 160 miles of standard gauge track inside the huge open pit. In the pit, there was a a network of steel towers that carried electrical service to the shovels and locomotives.

Electric locomotives also replaced steam locomotives to haul ore from the Mine to the Magna and Arthur mills.

The Mine continued to grow deeper, so in 1949, an additional 7,000- foot tunnel 12

was driven through the mountain from the Mine into Bingham Canyon.

In 1950, Kennecott Utah Copper dedicated its own, state of the art Electrolytic Refinery, which would process copper anodes produced at the Garfield Smelter.

In 1954, the Kennecott Research Center was dedicated on the University of Utah campus where company scientists and engineers developed new methods and facilities to improve the production and recovery of copper, gold, silver, molybdenite and other minerals from Kennecott’s mines.

In 1958, a third rail haulage tunnel was driven 18,000 feet through the mountain that divided the Mine and Bingham Canyon.

Kennecott Utah Copper became totally integrated in 1959 with the purchase of the Garfield Smelter from ASARCO.

As requirements for additional electricity continued to grow, the Power Plant was expanded to 175,000-kilowatt 13

capacity. The company has plans to upgrade the Power Plant with newer, efficient and cleaner natural gas turbines that will continue to produce about 85% of the company’s power requirements.

In 1963, Kennecott began a four-year, $100 Million expansion of operations. Safety training and procedures were also expanded and improved.

In the Mine, 65-ton capacity haulage trucks began replacing rail haulage in the upper, waste rock sections of the pit.

A revolutionary cone Precipitate Plant was built at the mouth of Bingham Canyon to capture tiny traces of copper from the overburden dumps. The end product was a rich, red sludge the contained nearly 90 percent copper, which was treated at the smelter.

Another major component of the four- year expansion project was the start up in 1966 of Bonneville Crushing and Grinding Plant that was engineered and built to provide additional feed for the Magna and Arthur Concentrators.

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Another revolutionary innovation was the Molybdic Oxide and Rhenium Recovery Plant next to the Garfield Smelter. In this facility, three by - products of molybdenum were recovered as saleable commodities.

While new plants were being built as part of the expansion program, companywide safety training was increased as engineers and operators were making improvements to the Magna and Arthur operations to accommodate the increased feed from the new Bonneville plant.

Because, Magna and Arthur were providing more copper concentrate, the Smelter, was modernized to include the rebuilding of two reverberatory smelting furnaces, which resulted in increased production of 98.5 percent pure copper anodes and additional acid plants.

At the Refinery, more improvements were made to handle the increased volume of Smelter anodes, which were placed in electrolytic tanks and transformed into copper cathodes at 99.96 percent purity. They were melted 15

and cast into shapes required by Kennecott customers.

In 1974 Kennecott announced a major Smelter modification project in response to the 1970 Clean Air Act.

The project was completed in 1978, and included a 1,215-foot stack, and advanced smelting and gas cleaning technologies. Final cost-$300 million.

In 1981, Kennecott was purchased by The Standard Oil Company of Ohio (SOHIO) and Kennecott was no longer a publicly traded company.

In 1984, all waste rail mining operations were replaced with 170-ton haul trucks.

In 1986, SOHIO approved a $400 million dollar major expansion and modernization program designed to make Kennecott Utah Copper a lower cost producer by the end of the decade.

Ownership of Kennecott changed again in 1987, when British Petroleum acquired total control of SOHIO.

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In 1988, Kennecott’s modernization program opened a new era of innovation with an in-pit crusher in the Mine… a five-mile ore conveyor from the crusher… through an old rail haulage tunnel through the mountain… and arriving at the new Copperton Concentrator.

The new concentrator contained a three- line grinding circuit of SAG and ball mills, which produced a slurry for flotation, where molybdenite minerals and copper minerals containing gold and silver were liberated from the host rock.

In 1989, one of the world’s largest mining conglomerates, RTZ Corporation, now known as Rio Tinto became the new owner of Kennecott and enlarged the Copperton Concentrator in 1992, with an additional fourth grinding line, which increased plant ore production to about 150,000 tons per day, and a fourth flotation circuit that increased concentrate production to about one million tons yearly.

Meanwhile, the old Arthur Mill was shut down in 1984, and razed in 1991. 17

In 1988, the Magna Mill, also built in 1907, ceased crushing and grinding operations, but continued with flotation, processing ore from the Bonneville crushing and grinding operations. This hybrid facility ceased operating in 2001.

In 1992, Rio Tinto approved a massive $880 million expansion and modernization project that would include a modernized refinery and building a new smelter using flash smelting and converting technologies, a revolutionary Hydrometallurgical Treatment Plant that virtually eliminated the generation of hazardous wastes, and an elaborate gas cleaning and double contact acid plant. In 1995, the new, state-of-the-art smelter was dedicated as the cleanest copper smelter in the world, capturing 99.9+ percent of sulfur emissions and waste heat from the boilers was captured to provide about 60% of the smelter’s electric power needs . The modernized electrolytic refinery came on line a year earlier, in 1994, with an entirely new look.

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Basic electrolytic technology remained, but in a new highly automated setting.

Anodes were delivered, and cathodes are removed from the tank house by Automated Laser Guided Vehicles. This system was later replaced with a more robust, internal rail transport system.

The modernized Refinery also featured total production stripping, cathode sampling, corrugation, bundling and shipping. Cathode purity is 99.99 %.

The Refinery also included a new precious metals refinery for the recovery of by-product gold and silver, processed to 99.99 % purity. We are proud of the fact, that Kennecott Utah Copper mined and donated the copper, gold and silver and Kennecott’s Greens Creek Mine in Alaska mined the zinc, to produce the gold, silver and bronze medals for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games held in Salt Lake City and the copper, gold and silver for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London.

Since the beginning of Concentrator operations in 1907, tailings, the waste 19

by-product from milling operations, were impounded near Magna.

The Impoundment was expanded on several occasions and grew to cover 5,700 acres at a height of 250 feet, nearly reaching its maximum storage capacity.

Starting in 1995, a new storage area was developed north and adjacent to the original impoundment, which was seismically upgraded, reclaimed and vegetated.

Concern for the environment began as early as 1915, when Utah Copper engineers and workers helped ASARCO design and build acid plant technology to help reduce sulfur dioxide emissions at the Smelter.

For about three quarters of a century, company environmental engineers and employees have tackled and solved most of our environmental challenges throughout, and adjacent to Kennecott properties. Since the 1990s, more than $400 million dollars has been spent in Kennecott’s comprehensive approach to cleaning up and reclaiming land, and 20

also water, impacted by historic mining and processing operations.

From about 1990 to about 2010, Kennecott Utah Copper was mining about 150,000 tons of ore and about 350,000 tons of waste rock every day from the Bingham Canyon Mine that produced about 300,000 tons of refined copper and about 450,000 ounces of gold, 4,000,000 ounces of silver, 30 million pounds of molybdenum and 1,000,000 tons of sulfuric acid.

For the past 110 years, workplace safety has evolved from a company priority to a company value and the company has won numerous safety awards and is recognized as an industry leader.

At Kennecott Utah Copper, evolving technologies and a determined work force have helped us meet the challenges of extending the economic life of the Bingham Canyon Mine. This included the Giant Leap initiative launched in 2005 that included a new Pebble Crushing complex at the Copperton Concentrator and in 2011 the Cornerstone initiative, both designed to 21

extend the open pit mine life. Today, about 160 tons of ore and 450 tons of waste are mined daily by 10 electric rope shovels, the largest is equipped with a 74 cubic yard dipper that can load about 110 tons per lift and two hydraulic shovels. Ore and waste are transported by a fleet of 90 haulage trucks most of them with a capacity of 320 tons and the largest being 350 tons.

At the present time, Bingham Canyon has about a 15-year open pit mine life with a copper ore grade of about .005 %.

However, by reducing costs and improving operational efficiencies, we can hopefully continue to extend our open pit mine life through about 2029, which pushes consideration of possible underground mining further into the future.

Bingham’s underground mining also looks very promising.

While the phrase “Sustainable Development” has been embraced by industry in recent years, Kennecott has a long history of striving to build on its 22

economic, social and environmental record. The company has contributed to sustainable approaches that help meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

Evidence of that can be found in Kennecott Utah Copper’s efforts to extend the economic life of its operations and, through the efforts of a sister company, Kennecott Land, where they develop post-mining land and water resources for today and tomorrow.

Since 1903, the company has been one of the world’s largest mining families, working one of the world’s greatest mining operations. Their workforce, one of the best in the industry, forever changed the way people mine and process copper ore and many employees trace their family roots back three, four and five generations.

The world famous Bingham Canyon Mine, through dedicated people… engineering innovations…and a remarkable gift of Nature, is truly Kennecott Utah Copper Living Legacy. 23