Kennecott Utah Copper
Encyclopedia
Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation (KUCC), a division of Rio Tinto Group
, is a mining
, smelting
, and refining
company. Its corporate headquarters are located in South Jordan
, Utah
, USA
. Kennecott operates one of the largest open-pit
copper
mines in the world in Bingham Canyon
, Salt Lake County
, Utah. The company was first formed as 1898 as the Boston Consolidated Mining Company. The current corporation was formed in 1989.
The Kennecott Utah Copper Company had its start when Enos A. Wall realized the potential of copper
deposits in Bingham Canyon, 15 miles (24.1 km) southwest of Salt Lake City
, Utah
in 1887 and acquired claims to the land. Underground mining in the area was begun in 1890, and Daniel C. Jackling
and Robert C. Gemmell, both engineers, examined Wall's properties and recommended open-pit mining
. In 1898, Samuel Newhouse
and Thomas Weir formed the Boston Consolidated Mining Company.
Jackling and Wall formed the Utah Copper Company in 1903, and the company immediately started a pilot mill at Copperton
. With financing from Guggenheim Exploration
, the first digging began in 1906. The same year, the Kennecott Mines Company was formed in Alaska, named after explorer and naturalist Robert Kennicott
. A smelter was also started at Garfield
by the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) to refine the Bingham ore.
In 1907, the Utah Copper mill in Magna started operation. Utah Copper and Boston Consolidated merged in 1910, and in 1915, Kennecott acquired 25% interest in the company. The Bingham and Garfield Railway opened in 1911 to transport the ore, replacing the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad's line. In 1936, Kennecott acquired all the assets of the Utah Copper Company.
During World War II
, Bingham set new world records for copper mining and produced about 30% of the copper used by the Allies. Many women worked in the mines, mills, and smelters.
On September 9, 1949 three company officers were killed in an airplane bombing known as the Albert Guay Affair in Quebec
: the retiring president E.T. Stannard; his designated successor, Arthur D. Storke; and R.J. Parker, a vice-president. Charles Cox, formerly head of Carnegie-Illinois Steel, was hired shortly after to fill the executive vacuum.
By 1961, Kennecott's copper mines included four large open pits in the Arizona
, New Mexico
, and Nevada
, and one underground mine in Chile
. As the mine in Utah expanded, it subsumed the land on which the town of Bingham was built, and the city ceased to exist in 1971.
In 1981, a world-wide fall in copper prices brought about the acquisition of Kennecott by Standard Oil of Ohio
(SOHIO). Production was interrupted from 1985 to 1987. In the latter year, British Petroleum
acquired SOHIO, and Kennecott became part of BP Minerals America. In 1989 Rio Tinto Zinc
(RTZ) purchased mining assets from BP. Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation was formed by Rio Tinto in 1989 as a new mining company under the laws of the State of Utah.
Today, as the second largest copper producer in the United States, Kennecott Utah Copper provides about 18-25% percent of the U.S.'s copper needs. Kennecott’s Bingham Canyon Mine is one of the largest man-made excavations in the world. It is one of the top producing copper mines in the world with cumulative production at more than 18.7 million tons of copper. Every year, Kennecott produces approximately 300,000 tons of copper, along with 500,000 ounces of gold, 4 million ounces of silver, about 30 million pounds of molybdenum, and about 1 million tons of sulfuric acid, a by-product of the smelting process. Since Rio Tinto purchased Kennecott Utah Copper in 1989 it has invested about $2 billion in the modernization of KUC’s operations. KUCC has also spent more than $350 million on the cleanup of historic mining waste and $100 million on groundwater cleanup. Rio Tinto employs 2,400 people and hundreds of contractors in Utah
Rio Tinto Group, one of the world's largest mining operations, comprises dual-listed companies Rio Tinto Limited (based in Melbourne) and Rio Tinto plc (based in London) Although each company trades separately, the two Rio Tintos operate as one business.
(EPA) National Priorities List (NPL). This investment represents one of many remediation projects along the Oquirrh Mountains
to clean up historic mining sites. To date, Kennecott Utah Copper has remediated more than 10000 acres (40.5 km²) of the total 40000 acres (161.9 km²) impacted by mining at a cost of more than $450 million.
KUCC is considering possible alternatives that will keep the Bingham Canyon Mine open for another couple decades. The open pit operations are projected to extend to 2019.
. Kennecott Land was established by Rio Tinto in April 2001 to develop surplus mining land. Daybreak Community
, the first part of the process, is situated on 4126 acres (16.7 km²) in the city of South Jordan where 20,000 homes and up to 14000000 square feet (1,300,642.6 m²) of commercial space are planned. Opened in 2009, Daybreak's first commercial center, SoDa row, contains a boutique, restaurants, hair salon and more. They dug most of it with shovels.
Rio Tinto Group
The Rio Tinto Group is a diversified, British-Australian, multinational mining and resources group with headquarters in London and Melbourne. The company was founded in 1873, when a multinational consortium of investors purchased a mine complex on the Rio Tinto river, in Huelva, Spain from the...
, is a mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
, smelting
Smelting
Smelting is a form of extractive metallurgy; its main use is to produce a metal from its ore. This includes iron extraction from iron ore, and copper extraction and other base metals from their ores...
, and refining
Refining
Refining is the process of purification of a substance or a form. The term is usually used of a natural resource that is almost in a usable form, but which is more useful in its pure form. For instance, most types of natural petroleum will burn straight from the ground, but it will burn poorly...
company. Its corporate headquarters are located in South Jordan
South Jordan, Utah
South Jordan is a city in the U.S. state of Utah. The city lies in the Salt Lake Valley between the peaks of the Oquirrh Mountains and the peaks of the Wasatch Mountains and is part of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area...
, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Kennecott operates one of the largest open-pit
Open-pit mining
Open-pit mining or opencast mining refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow....
copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
mines in the world in Bingham Canyon
Bingham Canyon Mine
The Bingham Canyon Mine, also known as the Kennecott Copper Mine, is an open-pit mining operation extracting a large porphyry copper deposit southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, in the Oquirrh Mountains. It is the deepest open-pit mine in the world. The mine is owned by Rio Tinto Group, an...
, Salt Lake County
Salt Lake County, Utah
Salt Lake County is a county located in the U.S. state of Utah. It had a population of 1,029,655 at the 2010 census. Its county seat and largest city is Salt Lake City, the state capital. It occupies Salt Lake Valley, as well as parts of the surrounding mountains, the Oquirrh Mountains to the west...
, Utah. The company was first formed as 1898 as the Boston Consolidated Mining Company. The current corporation was formed in 1989.
History
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
deposits in Bingham Canyon, 15 miles (24.1 km) southwest of Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...
, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
in 1887 and acquired claims to the land. Underground mining in the area was begun in 1890, and Daniel C. Jackling
Daniel C. Jackling
-Career:Daniel Jackling was educated in mining and metallurgy disciplines at the Missouri School of Mines in Rolla, Missouri, now known as Missouri University of Science and Technology. In 1898, Jackling and Robert C. Gemmell made a detailed examination of the Bingham Canyon copper property. They...
and Robert C. Gemmell, both engineers, examined Wall's properties and recommended open-pit mining
Open-pit mining
Open-pit mining or opencast mining refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow....
. In 1898, Samuel Newhouse
Samuel Newhouse
Samuel Newhouse was a Utah entrepreneur and mining magnate.He was born in New York City of European Jewish immigrant parents and grew up in Pennsylvania. He studied law there before going to Colorado in 1879...
and Thomas Weir formed the Boston Consolidated Mining Company.
Jackling and Wall formed the Utah Copper Company in 1903, and the company immediately started a pilot mill at Copperton
Copperton, Utah
Copperton is a CDP and township in Salt Lake County, Utah, United States, located at the mouth of Bingham Canyon, about 17 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The township boundaries include a greater area than that of the CDP Copperton is a CDP and township in Salt Lake County, Utah, United...
. With financing from Guggenheim Exploration
Guggenheim family
The Guggenheim family is an American family, of Swiss Jewish ancestry. Beginning with Meyer Guggenheim, who arrived in America in 1847, the family were known for their global successes in mining and smelting . During the 19th century, the family possessed one of the largest fortunes in the world...
, the first digging began in 1906. The same year, the Kennecott Mines Company was formed in Alaska, named after explorer and naturalist Robert Kennicott
Robert Kennicott
Robert Kennicott was an American naturalist.-Biography:Kennicott was born in New Orleans and grew up in "West Northfield" , Illinois, a town in the prairie north of the then nascent city of Chicago....
. A smelter was also started at Garfield
Garfield County, Utah
Garfield County is a county located in the U.S. state of Utah. As of 2000 the population was 4,735. It was named for James A. Garfield, President of the United States in 1881. Its county seat and largest city is Panguitch.-Geography:...
by the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) to refine the Bingham ore.
In 1907, the Utah Copper mill in Magna started operation. Utah Copper and Boston Consolidated merged in 1910, and in 1915, Kennecott acquired 25% interest in the company. The Bingham and Garfield Railway opened in 1911 to transport the ore, replacing the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad's line. In 1936, Kennecott acquired all the assets of the Utah Copper Company.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Bingham set new world records for copper mining and produced about 30% of the copper used by the Allies. Many women worked in the mines, mills, and smelters.
On September 9, 1949 three company officers were killed in an airplane bombing known as the Albert Guay Affair in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
: the retiring president E.T. Stannard; his designated successor, Arthur D. Storke; and R.J. Parker, a vice-president. Charles Cox, formerly head of Carnegie-Illinois Steel, was hired shortly after to fill the executive vacuum.
By 1961, Kennecott's copper mines included four large open pits in the Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, and Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
, and one underground mine in Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
. As the mine in Utah expanded, it subsumed the land on which the town of Bingham was built, and the city ceased to exist in 1971.
In 1981, a world-wide fall in copper prices brought about the acquisition of Kennecott by Standard Oil of Ohio
Standard Oil of Ohio
Standard Oil of Ohio or Sohio was an American oil company that was acquired by British Petroleum, now called BP.It was one of the successor companies to Standard Oil after the antitrust breakup in 1911. Standard Oil of Ohio was the original Standard Oil company founded by John D. Rockefeller. It...
(SOHIO). Production was interrupted from 1985 to 1987. In the latter year, British Petroleum
BP
BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...
acquired SOHIO, and Kennecott became part of BP Minerals America. In 1989 Rio Tinto Zinc
Rio Tinto Group
The Rio Tinto Group is a diversified, British-Australian, multinational mining and resources group with headquarters in London and Melbourne. The company was founded in 1873, when a multinational consortium of investors purchased a mine complex on the Rio Tinto river, in Huelva, Spain from the...
(RTZ) purchased mining assets from BP. Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation was formed by Rio Tinto in 1989 as a new mining company under the laws of the State of Utah.
Today, as the second largest copper producer in the United States, Kennecott Utah Copper provides about 18-25% percent of the U.S.'s copper needs. Kennecott’s Bingham Canyon Mine is one of the largest man-made excavations in the world. It is one of the top producing copper mines in the world with cumulative production at more than 18.7 million tons of copper. Every year, Kennecott produces approximately 300,000 tons of copper, along with 500,000 ounces of gold, 4 million ounces of silver, about 30 million pounds of molybdenum, and about 1 million tons of sulfuric acid, a by-product of the smelting process. Since Rio Tinto purchased Kennecott Utah Copper in 1989 it has invested about $2 billion in the modernization of KUC’s operations. KUCC has also spent more than $350 million on the cleanup of historic mining waste and $100 million on groundwater cleanup. Rio Tinto employs 2,400 people and hundreds of contractors in Utah
Rio Tinto Group, one of the world's largest mining operations, comprises dual-listed companies Rio Tinto Limited (based in Melbourne) and Rio Tinto plc (based in London) Although each company trades separately, the two Rio Tintos operate as one business.
Environmental relations
Significant groundwater contamination exists in the aquifer downgradient of the Bingham Canyon mining operations. Approximately 80 square miles (207.2 km²) are impacted in the southwest portion of Salt Lake County. Because of the remediation efforts, which include more than a $100 million dollar investment in a reverse osmosis facility, Kennecott's South End (location of the contaminated aquifer) was removed from the United States Environmental Protection AgencyUnited States Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...
(EPA) National Priorities List (NPL). This investment represents one of many remediation projects along the Oquirrh Mountains
Oquirrh Mountains
The Oquirrh Mountains is a mountain range that run north-south for approximately 30 miles to form the west side of Utah's Salt Lake Valley, separating it from Tooele Valley. The range begins in northwest Utah County and stops at the south shore of the Great Salt Lake. The highest elevation is...
to clean up historic mining sites. To date, Kennecott Utah Copper has remediated more than 10000 acres (40.5 km²) of the total 40000 acres (161.9 km²) impacted by mining at a cost of more than $450 million.
KUCC is considering possible alternatives that will keep the Bingham Canyon Mine open for another couple decades. The open pit operations are projected to extend to 2019.
Land development
Another Rio Tinto-owned company manages the non-mining land and water assets previously owned by KUCC, Kennecott Land CompanyKennecott Land
Kennecott Land, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto Group, is an American land development company formed in 2001 and based in South Jordan, Utah. Kennecott Land owns 93,000 acres of undeveloped land in Salt Lake and Tooele counties in Utah, 75,000 acres of which are located in Salt Lake County...
. Kennecott Land was established by Rio Tinto in April 2001 to develop surplus mining land. Daybreak Community
Daybreak Community
Daybreak is a master-planned community over 4,000 acres in size being built by land development company Kennecott Land in South Jordan, Utah. Home construction began in 2004 and the community is expected to continue building for the next 18 to 20 years...
, the first part of the process, is situated on 4126 acres (16.7 km²) in the city of South Jordan where 20,000 homes and up to 14000000 square feet (1,300,642.6 m²) of commercial space are planned. Opened in 2009, Daybreak's first commercial center, SoDa row, contains a boutique, restaurants, hair salon and more. They dug most of it with shovels.