TECK’S CESL COPPER PROCESS:

As replacement production from global refined copper rises, the need for producers to find cost effective ways to develop copper porphyry deposits is becoming increasingly important. For example, brownfield projects in South America with depleting heap leach production but with an underlying sulphide deposit represent an opportunity to integrate concentrate leaching with existing solvent extraction and electrowinning infrastructure to establish value added on-site metal production as an alternative to conventional concentrate sales. This option can accelerate the delivery of metal to market while avoiding permitting and cost issues related to long slurry pipelines. Over the last 20 years, Teck Resources Limited has been at the forefront of developing copper pressure leaching technology, known as the CESL Process, which has been tested at an industrial scale and has the potential to achieve cost competitive cathode production while effectively handling impurities in concentrates which render them difficult to market. This paper highlights the successful development history of Teck’s copper pressure leaching technology while providing standard operating parameters and resulting metallurgical performance from a range of primary copper sulphide concentrates tested. A conceptual level case study is presented to assess the integration of a commercial pressure leach circuit with existing SX/EW infrastructure. The technical, economic, environmental and social value-added benefits of this alternative will be compared to conventional concentrate marketing to smelters.