The United States has a copper problem. Simply put, the U.S. uses a lot of it and there aren’t enough American mines to pull it out of the ground fast enough. But Ivanhoe Electric is moving toward becoming the first U.S.-based company to open a copper mine stateside in over a decade – and with copper prices shooting to record highs, the timing couldn’t be better.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March hoping to add copper to the critical minerals list, which would expedite permitting and offer tax incentives to mining companies. And on July 8, the president announced a 50% tariff on copper imports starting Aug. 1.
The U.S. only produces about half the copper it uses, ranking fifth in production behind Chile, Democratic Republic of Congo, Peru and China. Part of the reason is that it takes an average of 29 years for copper mines to begin production, due to a lengthy permitting and approval process.
But Ivanhoe Electric’s Santa Cruz Project, about 40 miles south of Phoenix in Casa Grande, Arizona, aims to be up and running by 2028, only eight years since it started the project.
"It's like tomorrow in mining terms. It's incredibly, incredibly fast and incredibly efficient," said Taylor Melvin, president and CEO of the Tempe-based company. "One of our great advantages is being on private land here in Arizona. It allows us to have a much more streamlined permitting process, which allows us to have a more accelerated timetable to construction and production."
The company has been collecting core samples all over its 6,000 acres of land, plotting the best spots to mine. The mine will be underground and there’s enough copper to produce nearly 3 billion pounds of copper over the next 23 years. When completed, it would "place us in the top five or six mines in the United States," says Melvin.