ARIZONA COPPER KING

September 19, 2025
Many copper bobbins, warehouse copper pipes. 3d illustration.

The Story, mining and moving the Copper from the mine to the Smelter.

70% of America’s copper is mined in Arizona—but like many American mines, the story is not without inefficiencies. Concentrate can travel over 100 miles by rail and truck—sometimes both—just to reach the Miami processing facility.
This detour isn’t incidental. It’s baked into the U.S. copper supply chain, mirroring broader gaps in American mining: fragmented, inefficient, and often invisible.

Red X = concentrate only. Circled red X = vertically integrated. Some mines move copper. Others move concentrate.
A lone train passing through the Arizona desert.
The Morenci mine in Graham county, currently the largest copper producer in North America is located 140 miles from what is called The Miami a smelting and processing the facility receiving concenrate from now the Safford mine and the next Resolution mine still pending final approval.
  • The Morenci Mine
    • Annual output: 385,000 metric tons of concentrate
    • Distance to Miami smelter: 140 miles
    • 1,050 tons/day ÷ 25 tons/truck ≈ 42 truckloads/day
  • Safford:
    • Annual output: 180,000 metric tons of concentrate.
    • Daily movement: ~500 tons/day ≈ 20 truckloads/day
    • Distance to Miami smelter: 125 miles
  • Resolution (projected):
    ~330 tons/day ÷ 25 tons/truck ≈ 13 truckloads/day

Total Daily Movement to Miami
~75 truckloads per day, hauling concentrate across Arizona’s highways and rail spurs—just to reach a single smelter.
This isn’t just tonnage. It’s a convoy. And it’s not just copper—it’s choreography, dependency, and infrastructure in motion.

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