Mining
Everything You Need to Know About Copper Porphyries
Everything You Need to Know About Copper Porphyries
Presented by Entrée Gold
What is a Porphyry?
Porphyry deposits are very large, polymetallic systems that typically contain copper along with other important metals. Much of today’s mineral production depends on porphyries: 60% of copper, 95% of molbdenum, and 20% of gold comes from this deposit type.
Where and How are Porphyries Formed?
Porphyries are most commonly found along the west coast of North and South America, as well as in the Southwest Pacific.
Porphyries are formed in tectonic plate convergent zones where oceanic crust has subducted beneath the continental crust, and in some cases the oceanic crust. As the plate subducts, the overlying upper mantle partially melts and the liquid magma rises to the surface. Hot fluids rise to the surface by flowing through cracks and fissures. Metals precipitate out of the solution as fluid cools and moves away from the heat source and pressure.
Mineralization
In porphyry mineralization, there are many economic minerals that can be found: copper, gold, molybdenum, silver, lead, zinc, tin, and tungsten. There are also associated mineral deposits that can form that depend on the host rock and the distance from the heat source. These include skarn, epithermal, and breccia type deposits.
Four Things to Know on Porphyries
- Polymetallic nature – Each porphyry is unique and holds different concentrations of minerals. Some deposits have such high concentrations of gold that they may be considered gold deposits rather than copper deposits. Others have barely any gold at all but may have plenty of molybdenum.
- Large Size, Low Grade – Porphyries typically have 100 million to 5 billion tonnes of ore with a lower grade (0.2% to >1% copper). It is the size of these deposits that allow for bulk mining and economies of scale.
- Long Mine Life – The size of porphyry systems usually mean that the life of the mine can be multi-decades long. This means that these deposits last through multiple market cycles, and are thus not as vulnerable to challenging market environments compared to other smaller mines.
- Infrastructure is Key – In order to process large amounts of ore, infrastructure can be a large part of initial capital expenditures (CAPEX). Access to power and water are key issues as large amounts of both are needed to process ore. The footprint of the mine and volume of tailings disposal can also make porphyries more challenging to permit.
Example Porphyry
Each year the Bingham Canyon Mine, located in Utah and owned by Rio Tinto and in production since 1906, produces approximately:
- 300,000 tons of copper
- 400,000 oz of gold
- 4,000,000 oz of silver
- 30,000,000 lbs of molybdenum
The value of the resources extracted to date from the Bingham Canyon Mine is greater than the Comstock Lode, Klondike, and California gold rush mining regions combined.
Uranium
Charted: Global Uranium Reserves, by Country
We visualize the distribution of the world’s uranium reserves by country, with 3 countries accounting for more than half of total reserves.
Charted: Global Uranium Reserves, by Country
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
There can be a tendency to believe that uranium deposits are scarce from the critical role it plays in generating nuclear energy, along with all the costs and consequences related to the field.
But uranium is actually fairly plentiful: it’s more abundant than gold and silver, for example, and about as present as tin in the Earth’s crust.
We visualize the distribution of the world’s uranium resources by country, as of 2021. Figures come from the World Nuclear Association, last updated on August 2023.
Ranked: Uranium Reserves By Country (2021)
Australia, Kazakhstan, and Canada have the largest shares of available uranium resources—accounting for more than 50% of total global reserves.
But within these three, Australia is the clear standout, with more than 1.7 million tonnes of uranium discovered (28% of the world’s reserves) currently. Its Olympic Dam mine, located about 600 kilometers north of Adelaide, is the the largest single deposit of uranium in the world—and also, interestingly, the fourth largest copper deposit.
Despite this, Australia is only the fourth biggest uranium producer currently, and ranks fifth for all-time uranium production.
Country | Share of Global Reserves | Uranium Reserves (Tonnes) |
---|---|---|
🇦🇺 Australia | 28% | 1.7M |
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan | 13% | 815K |
🇨🇦 Canada | 10% | 589K |
🇷🇺 Russia | 8% | 481K |
🇳🇦 Namibia | 8% | 470K |
🇿🇦 South Africa | 5% | 321K |
🇧🇷 Brazil | 5% | 311K |
🇳🇪 Niger | 5% | 277K |
🇨🇳 China | 4% | 224K |
🇲🇳 Mongolia | 2% | 145K |
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan | 2% | 131K |
🇺🇦 Ukraine | 2% | 107K |
🌍 Rest of World | 9% | 524K |
Total | 100% | 6M |
Figures are rounded.
Outside the top three, Russia and Namibia both have roughly the same amount of uranium reserves: about 8% each, which works out to roughly 470,000 tonnes.
South Africa, Brazil, and Niger all have 5% each of the world’s total deposits as well.
China completes the top 10, with a 3% share of uranium reserves, or about 224,000 tonnes.
A caveat to this is that current data is based on known uranium reserves that are capable of being mined economically. The total amount of the world’s uranium is not known exactly—and new deposits can be found all the time. In fact the world’s known uranium reserves increased by about 25% in the last decade alone, thanks to better technology that improves exploration efforts.
Meanwhile, not all uranium deposits are equal. For example, in the aforementioned Olympic Dam, uranium is recovered as a byproduct of copper mining occurring at the same site. In South Africa, it emerges as a byproduct during treatment of ores in the gold mining process. Orebodies with high concentrations of two substances can increase margins, as costs can be shared for two different products.
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