Talk:Bingham Canyon Mine

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[edit] Merged articles about the mine, added one for the city

OK, I bit the bullet and finally took care of the duplicate articles about the Bingham Canyon Mine, consolidating the former Bingham Canyon and Kennecott Copper Mine articles at this location. I chose this name to avoid confusion with the former mines in Kennecott, Alaska, and because (as a former Utahn) I believe the Bingham Canyon name is in far more common use. I went with "Bingham Canyon Mine" rather than just "Bingham Canyon" to distinguish the mine from the place name and former city. (Kennecott itself also calls the place "Bingham Canyon Mine.") Finally, I created a stub article at Bingham Canyon, Utah for the former city.

The mine article definitely needs a bit of work, something evidenced in part by the fact that some of the info in the two former articles was in conflict. I may work on that a bit later, but first I have a bunch of redirects to clear up, and I want to expand the article about the former city a bit. Pitamakan 23:01, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, looks good, a big improvement and less confusing to readers. Good work!
I don't think "Bingham Canyon vies with Chuquicamata in Chile for the title of world's largest open pit copper mine" squares with "Bingham Canyon ... is the third largest copper producer in the US." Perhaps just delete the first statement (leaving it the largest excavation, which may be true. Likely it's the largest single excavation -- Morenci may have moved more rock, but it's a multiple-pit mine. Cheers, Pete Tillman 19:37, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Pete! I just spent a little time rewriting the first couple of paragraphs of the article, trying to make the significance claims credible ... if you have a chance, take a look at it and see if it sounds OK. The problem is the various qualifiers people decide to use when making claims in this arena -- annual production, cumulative production, mine acreage, or total amount of material moved. My understanding is that Bingham Canyon remains the leader in cumulative production and the size of the pit, but it's been passed in the other categories by two or three mines each in Chile and the southwest U.S. But it's not terribly easy to find that data, for some reason.
Anyhow, now the rest of this little article REALLY needs a rewrite now ... and I can't believe there's no article on Morenci in here! Take care -- Mark Pitamakan 00:48, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Mark: looks good. Thanks!
Eh, maybe I'll take a whack at writing up Morenci sometime. Or some of the
Arizona mines I've actually worked at, and know something about.... [grin]
Cheers, Pete Tillman 05:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
I've done a bit of adding up of various sources(Cochilco year books, Codelco annual reports and Yacimientos
Metaliferous de Chile) and found that Chuquicamata has produced at least 28 million tonnes of copper to date,
easily the largest cumulative copper output for one mine. I think Bingham Canyon is No 2 but Escondida is
catching up fast and will be No 2 in about four years Mafestel (talk) 13:04, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dump Trucks

"Ore is loaded into a fleet of 64 very large dump trucks which each carry 255 tons (231 t) of ore at a time, at a cost of approximately US$3 million per truck."

It is unclear to what the cost of $3 million refers. Is it the cost of the truck? Or value of the ore that it carries? Or the production cost of that ore? This needs to be verified and reworded in a more straightforward sentence.--Edgewise (talk) 14:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Daniel C. Jackling.gif

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[edit] Biggest copper producer

According to Carlos Ruiz Fuller annd Federico Peebles, both highly respected professors in the geology and geophysics departments of the University of Chile, Chuqui's copper production to the end of 1985 was 15.7 million tonnes (Yacimientos Metaliferos de Chile). Since then it has mined an additional 13.6 million tonnes according to Cochilco (Comisión Chilena del Cobre), making a total of just over 29 million tonnes of fine copper. If you still don't believe me, in The Decline of the Copper Industry in Chile and the Entrance of North ... By Joanne Fox Przeworski, are given production figures for Chuqui up to 1930 of 2.4 million tons (probably short tons). Nevertheless, adding this tonnage to the 1986-2007 figures from Cochilco they nearly equal Bingham Canyon's claimed total. Adding in the approximate 200,000 tonnes p.a. production between those two dates gives 27.4 million tonnes. Finally, in a presentation entitled TRANSITION FROM OPEN PIT TO UNDERGROUND MINING AT CHUQUICAMATA, ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE given recently by Codelco executives in Johannesburg it was stated that Chuqui had produced by the end of the year 2005, about 2.6 billion tons of copper ore with a mean grade of 1.53% or 39.8 million tonnes of contained copper. Assuming a rather low recovery of 75%, this equates to a production of just under 30 million tonnes. Chuqui is the biggest copper producer in total, I'm afraid, and by a long way. If you disagree, please let me know.Egoli (talk) 11:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)