Input Stories

Amazon will buy copper produced from a recently reopened Arizona mine to power its artificial intelligence data centers (The Wall Street Journal, subscription). 

What’s going on: Amazon has reached a two-year deal with Rio Tinto to purchase copper produced by Nuton, the mining company’s leaching program at the Johnson Camp Mine, about 65 miles east of Tucson. Gunnison Copper owns the mine.

• “The mine was restarted as a proving ground for Rio Tinto’s new method of unlocking low-grade copper deposits … [which] uses bacteria and acid to extract copper from ore that was previously uneconomical to process.”
• Rio Tinto expects Nuton to yield some 14,000 metric tons of copper cathode over four years. 

Why they’re doing it: “The biggest data centers each require tens of thousands of metric tons of copper for all the wires, busbars, circuit boards, transformers and other electrical components housed there.” 

• Copper prices hit record highs in December and are poised to climb higher still. 
• The idea behind the Nuton project: “to uncork the low-grade ore left behind at old mines and [it] is key to Rio’s plans to boost output when new discoveries are harder than ever to bring online and copper demand is surging.” 

The backstory: In 2010, Rio Tinto was seeking to commercialize the leaching technology—but, frustrated by the long times required to permit new mines in the U.S., it “found a shovel-ready location” in the Johnson Camp Mine. 

• The mine’s “low-grade layer—which the previous owners hit and deemed unworthy of mining—was the type of primary sulfide ore Rio seeks to unlock with Nuton.”  

Other details: Under the two-year agreement, Amazon will supply Rio Tinto with cloud-computing and data analytics to boost Nuton’s recovery rates.
 
The NAM says: “Thanks in large part to the NAM’s advocacy, copper was added to the U.S. Geological Survey’s critical minerals list in November, a major step toward recognizing copper’s importance to manufacturing,” said NAM Vice President of Domestic Policy Chris Phalen.

• “The NAM urges the administration and Congress to continue pursuing comprehensive permitting reform, which will increase America’s critical minerals production capacity and spur innovation in the sector.”