Description: Miami includes an open-pit copper mine, an operating smelter and a rod mill.

Location: 90 miles east of Phoenix in the heart of Arizona’s historic Globe-Miami mining district.

Did you know? The Miami Mine historically has been the major copper producer in the Globe-Miami mining area, one of America’s premier copper mining districts. Miami is now conducting an extensive, award-winning reclamation program and is in partnership with other mining companies from the area to remediate contaminated ground water downstream of the historic production sites.

Ores: The predominant oxide copper minerals are chrysocolla, copper-bearing clays, malachite and azurite. Chalcocite and covellite are the most important secondary copper sulfide minerals.

Processes and facilities: SX/EW plant, smelter and rod mill. In October 2009, FCX announced initiatives to resume limited mining activities at the Miami mine.

Background: The first prospecting expeditions visited the area in the 1860s. Copper was mined underground until after World War II, when the first open-pit mining began. Miami was among the first to employ “vat leaching” (1926) and precipitation plants to recover oxide minerals. It did this in conjunction with its flotation concentrator, which processed sulfide minerals. The plant’s smelter was modernized in 1974 to meet Clean Air Act standards and further modernized and expanded in 1992. The success of an SX/EW plant commissioned in 1979 led to the demise of vat leaching by the mid-1980s and ultimately the concentrator in 1986. The rod plant was commissioned in 1966 and refinery in 1993 (the refinery was permanently closed in 2005).

Ownership: 100%.

Smelter

Type: IsaSmelt technology (primary furnace) and ELKEM electric furnace (secondary); four Hoboken style converters, two oxygen plants; and an acid plant treating all process gases.

Did you know? The smelter is the only one in the United States to achieve International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001:2000 certification. In addition to copper concentrates, the smelter also recycles inorganic metal-bearing waste typically produced by high technology industries, extending the useful life of valuable metals and reducing disposal of metal-bearing waste in landfills. Copper and other precious metals are extracted during this process. In addition, the smelter produces by-product sulfuric acid.

Ownership: 100%

Rod Mill

Product: Continuous-cast copper rod.

Did you know? Completed in 1969 and the first of its kind to be located at a mine site. The plant uses the Southwire design casting system with Morgan mills to produce 7,500-pound and 15,000-pound copper rod coils.

Production: The Miami rod plant treats cathodes from Miami and other domestic operations and produces approximately 316 million pounds of copper rod per year.

History: Completed in 1969.

Ownership: 100%

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