The Worl d Copper Factbook 2019 International Copper Study Group 9 Chapter 3 Copper Production How is Copper Produced G e ologists lo ok for signs andor anomalies that would i ndi cate th e presence of a min e ral dep o sit Un de r the right geological economic environmental and le g a l conditions mi ning can proceed Primary c o pper prod uction starts with the ex tracti on of copper bearing ores There ar e thr e e basic ways of co pper mini ng surface underground minin g and le ac h i ng Ope n pit mi ning is the pr edominant min i ng metho d in the world After th e ore has been mined it is crushed and ground followed by a conce n tratio n by flotatio n Th e obtained copper conce n trates typi cally contain around 30 of copper but gr ades can range from 20 to 40 per cent In the f o llowing smelting process sometimes precede d by a roasting step copper is transformed into a matte c o n t aining 50 70 cop p er Th e molten ma tte is processed in a conve r ter resulting in a so calle d blister copper of 985 995 copp er conte n t In the next step the bliste r copper is fire refined in the traditi o nal process route or increasingly re melte d and cast into anodes for el ectro refini ng The output of electro refi ning is refined copper cat h odes assayi ng over 9999 of co pper Alternatively in the hydr ometallurgi c a l route copp er is extracted from mainly low grade oxide ores and also some sulphide ores through leaching so l vent e x tracti on and ele c trowinning SX EW process Th e output is the same as through th e ele c tro refining route refined coppe r cathodes IC SG estimates that in 2018 refined cop p er production fro m SX EW repres ented around 16 of total copper re f i n e d production Refine d copp er produ c tio n derive d fr om min e pr oduction either from metallur g ical treatm ent of concentra t es or SX EW is referr ed to as primary cop p er producti on as obtainable from a pri m ary raw material source How e ver there is another im p o rt an t so urce of raw material which is scrap Copper scrap derives from either me tals discarde d in semis fabrication or finished pro duct manufa c turi ng processes new scrap or obsolete end of life products o l d scrap Refi ne d copper pr oductio n attributable to recycl ed scrap feed is classified as secondary coppe r production Secon d ary producers use processes similar to those employed for primary pr oduction ICS G esti mates that in 2018 at the refinery level secondary copper refined production reached 17 of total copper re f i n e d production