Rio Tinto bets on copper, invests $1.5 billion in Salt Lake Co. mine

By John Rogers

Miners at the Kennecott Copper Mine in southwest Salt Lake County won’t need to worry about their jobs going away anytime soon. The operation’s owner, global mining giant Rio Tinto, announced last week that it will invest $1.5 billion in the mine, a move that will keep it open until at least 2032.{mprestriction ids="1,3"}

“This is an attractive, high-value and low-risk investment that will ensure Kennecott produces copper and other critical materials to at least 2032,” said Rio Tinto CEO Jean-Sébastien Jacques. “The outlook for copper is attractive, with strong growth in demand driven by its use in electric vehicles and renewable power technologies, and declining grades and closures at existing mines impacting supply.”

Rio Tinto said the investment will allow for further strip waste-rock mining — a process that removes material with no copper content to expose mineral-bearing ore — and support additional infrastructure development in the second phase of the mine’s South Wall Pushback project. This will allow mining to continue into a new area of the ore body and deliver close to 1 million tons of refined copper between 2026 and 2032. 

In its release, Rio Tinto said, “It is a world-class project that will generate attractive returns and allow further exploration of the deposit and options for mine life extension.”

Rio Tinto said the additional investment will begin next year and is part of a companywide 2020 capital expenditure of $7 billion. It will continue in 2021 and 2022 when the company will spend $6.5 billion each year in modernization, environmental stewardship and mine-life extension projects around the world.

Rio Tinto is an Anglo-Australian multinational and one of the world’s largest metals and mining corporations. The company was founded in 1873 when a multinational consortium of investors purchased a mine complex on the Rio Tinto River in Spain from the Spanish government. The company had 2018 revenues of $40.52 billion and employs over 47,000 people, including more than 2,000 in Utah. The company said it also contributes to more than 14,000 indirect Utah jobs.

In addition to copper, Kennecott is one of the largest producers of gold, silver, platinum group metals and molybdenum in North America and a potential source of critical minerals such as rhenium — which is necessary for the defense industry for the building of fighter jets — and tellurium, the company said.

“Kennecott is uniquely positioned to meet strong demand in the United States and delivers almost 20 percent of the country’s copper production,” said Jacques. “North American manufacturers have relied on high-quality products from Kennecott for the past century and this investment means it will continue to be a source of essential materials into the next decade.”

Earlier this year, Rio Tinto announced that it would cut the carbon footprint associated with operations at Kennecott by permanently closing its coal-fired power plant and sourcing renewable energy certificates. 

“Kennecott will be supplying customers across North America with products that are not only produced in the region, but responsibly mined with a significantly reduced carbon footprint,” said Jacques.

Gov. Gary Herbert welcomed Rio Tinto’s announcement about the Kennecott investment, which he says will “continue to fuel economic growth and employment for many years.”{/mprestriction}