Improving economics and sustainability in copper: a mining technology review

Driven by a growing list of stakeholder requirements and an explosion in creative solutions, Wood Mackenzie considers industry’s curiosity and intent for change to be on the rise. We believe this marks a deviation from purely NPV-derived business cases at mine operations to increasingly also feature the ‘E’ and ‘S’ of Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) as project key performance indicators. We review five areas in the production process that are seeing new (and not so new) technologies that are ripe for broadening adoption: 1. Displacing diesel consumption in the mining operation; 2. Gangue rejection and pre-concentration; 3. Advances in comminution and flotation to recover more or consume less energy and make-up water; 4. Digitalisation and the internet of things (IoT); 5. Decreasing non-renewable electricity consumption.