[ferro-alloys.com]The mining industry knows all about the big copper conundrum.

The highly conductive red metal is actually the vital metal of the future that needs to be mined for the green energy era to come to fruition, but big, new deposits are rare.

New copper projects such as Cascabel in Ecuador and Pebble in Alaska and the Oyu Tolgoi expansion in Mongolia are often faced with community opposition, permitting delays and cost overruns.

Facing aging mines with lower grades, the industry is looking at how much more copper they can produce out of their existing operations – Chile’s Codelco, for example, is planning massive upgrades of its aging mines.

Mines are shutting down or curtailing operations and global economic growth projections are being tossed aside amid the coronavirus pandemic.

New leaching technology

Jetti Resources is a start-up founded in 2014 that has introduced to the industry its eponymous technology, which it says makes it possible to extract copper from low-grade primary sulfides like chalcopyrite, the world’s most abundant copper mineral ore.

Headquartered in Colorado, with offices in Santiago and Vancouver, Jetti is a recipient of the Canadian Government’s Natural Resources Clean Growth Program funding to further research and encourage projects utilizing its “more energy-efficient process to extract copper from regular- and lower-grade ores, as well as waste mining materials and tailings.”

Its founder and CEO is 31-year-old venture capitalist Mike Outwin, who, in 2018, while based in Vancouver, was named one of BC Business magazine’s ’30 under 30.’ business leaders.

“For decades they’ve been trying to figure out how to utilize existing technologies and infrastructure to get copper out of that material,” Outwin told MINING.COM. “Its always been thought – if you can leach chalcopyrite – that’s the holy grail.”

In its quest for the holy grail of copper mining, Jetti Resources has attracted copper industry veterans Ken Pickering, former BHP Copper president, former BHP CEO Chip Goodyear, Trevor Reid, former Xstrata CFO, Jonathan Leslie, former CEO of Rio Tinto Copper and John Mackenzie, former CEO of Anglo American Copper.

“The major mining companies have long recognized that finding a way to increase copper recoveries when leaching low grade sulphide ores would generate a step change in industry economics,” Mackenzie said in an emailed statement. “Jetti has developed a technology that solves this conundrum in a cost-effective and environmentally responsible manner.”

According to Outwin, Jetti’s catalytic leaching technology addresses the key technical problem preventing recovery of potentially trillions of dollars of trapped resources.

Pinto Valley pilot

Jetti technology was tested this year by Capstone Mining at its Pinto Valley mine in Arizona. During the first year of Capstone’s partnership with Jetti, cathode production per area irrigated has doubled, Capstone announced in July.

“Pinto Valley mine has successfully demonstrated positive economics from enhanced dump leach performance by partnering with Jetti Resources to apply their novel patented catalytic technology at Pinto Valley’s existing dump leach operation,” Capstone said.

(Mining.com)

• [Editor:王可]