If copper isn’t Arizona’s king, it still looks to be a royal growth industry. Major new mines are in various stages of development or environmental haggling, all intended to exploit the metal ...

One of the greatest-producing mines in Arizona is Morenci, which produced 514 million pounds of copper — more than a third of the state total — in 2010. Other large mining operations are Ray ...

Three primary copper companies shaped the early years of the Clifton-Morenci District: the Detroit Copper Co., 1875-97; the Arizona Copper Co., 1882-1921, noted as the greatest copper producer ...

The mine has produced more than 43 billion pounds of copper since converting from underground to pit mining in 1937 and is estimated to hold at least 13 billion more — enough to operate through ...

After 154 years of digging at Morenci, all the easily recoverable copper has been mined. Left behind are towering piles of waste rock that hold nearly ten-million tons of the metal seen as ...

The mine routinely produces between 800 million and 1 billion pounds of copper and is expected to be in operation until 2052.Its largest US based operation is its 72 percent owned Morenci mine in ...

Another 275 jobs would be created in Safford, where about 750 of the city’s 10,000 residents already commute 45 minutes to Phelps Dodge’s Morenci Mine — the largest in North America.

U.S. copper production, currently 1.2 million metric tons a year, has been dropping because the nation’s biggest mine, the Morenci in Arizona, is declining and may be exhausted in 20 years.

MORENCI, Ariz. — The night crew returned to the motel parking lot just after 7 a.m. and assembled the booze and the ashtrays on a wooden picnic table. Some of the traveling mine maintenance ...