Copper is an important mineral in this electric and electronic age. It’s not exactly in short supply, but it takes a long time to start up new supply sources in the US. Taseko Mines harvested its first copper cathodes at Florence Copper in early March 2026, ending an roughly 18-year drought of entirely new US copper mines built from scratch. (See second article below).
Several mines are under development in Arizona. I’m an interested observer of mining; I worked for a very fine mining company long ago, which operated a very large copper mine outside Tucson AZ USA. I learned a lot about copper and other mining operations, much of which is now out of date— the world moves on!
The interest in this story is the intricacy of metals supply chains. It’s been impossible to build a smelter in the US in recent years. Smelters produce many noxious materials, and no one wants them nearby. So copper mined in the US must either be processed on-site, using a process called solvent extraction-electrowinning (SX-EW) or be shipped elsewhere to be upgraded to commercially usable copper. Affinity highlighted a critical bottleneck: smelting. Only two primary copper smelters remain operational in the country, meaning new domestic mine production does not necessarily translate into domestically refined metal. It has to be shipped overseas to be processed.
Rio Tinto’s giant Resolution Copper project in Arizona could eventually supply more than a quarter of US copper demand, according to Affinity. This project is forging ahead despite intense criticism from Native American tribes and citizens who deplore the landscape devastation an open pit copper mine creates. US law does not require mining operators to remediate land they have destroyed while mining.
To process the deep underground ore, Resolution Copper will perform the initial extraction and concentration on-site, but they will not do the final chemical refining on-site. Instead, they will use a two-stage approach: processing the ore into a high-grade powder called “concentrate,” and then shipping that material to external commercial customers for smelting and refining.
So many current plans do not eliminate the need for foreign involvement in metallic copper production.
Broker Banchero Costa reported that the US imported a record 225,094 tonnes of refined copper and copper alloys in July, the highest monthly total in data going back to 1990. The figure was up 78% month-on-month and 8% year-on-year as traders rushed material into the country ahead of possible tariffs.
It’s really hard to eliminate dependency on foreign infrastructure in today’s world. and perhaps we should not want to, but rather cultivate alliances and friendships with countries that can help us. Copper smelter capacity is spread around the world. Data below is from World Population Review.
Japan and Korea and India would be good candidates. Except for Chile and Canada, these countries are far from the US. Both also produce large quantities of copper. That means a large need in the US for shipping capacity to and from the foreign smelters.
Sam Chambers September 17, 2026
https://splash247.com/americas-copper-paradox-sets-up-new-seaborne-trade-flows
Written by Dean Belder Apr. 23, 2025 01:55PM PST
https://investingnews.com/next-us-copper-mine
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/copper-smelter-production-by-country
