Market Survey on Copper - Indian Bureau of Mines

ladle crane to the Pierce Smith Converter. Furnace oil fired burner maintains
the temperature of converter between two converter operations. In converter,
air is blown through the liquid matte at a pressure through side blown tuyers and
quartz is added as flux, resulting in production of blister copper (98%) and slag
(containing about 5% Cu).
The slag from flash smelting furnace and converters is treated in a sub-merged
arc slag cleaning furnace for reducing copper content in discard slag to below
0.7% Cu. The slag is allowed to settle in slag cleaning furnace where two
layers of molten matte and slag are formed. Matte from slag cleaning furnace is
treated in converters whereas slag is tapped, granulated and sent to the dump
yard.
Blister copper from converters is poured into ladles and transferred to anode
furnace by means of Electrical Overhead Transport crane for fire refining. Fuel
used for the heating burner in the Anode Furnace is naphtha, which is low
sulphur fuel suitable to maintain the quality of refined copper. Controlled air
blowing first oxidises remaining sulphur to remove it as sulphur dioxide.
However, in the process, a part of copper is also oxidized, which is reduced
back by reduction with hydrocarbons available from cracking of propane
injected under the metal bath. The fire refined copper containing 99.5% Cu
poured on rotating anode casting wheel as anode and dispatched to refinery tank
house for electro-refining to produce copper cathodes. Through this most
efficient process, copper recovery of 98.5% and sulphur recovery of 95% is
achieved.
Gases rich in sulphur dioxide are processed in Sulphuric Acid Plant (double
conversion double absorption (DCDA) process) to produce sulphuric acid.
iv) Jhagadia Copper Ltd., (Formerly SWIL Ltd.) : SWIL Ltd. has been
renamed as Jhagadia Copper Ltd. w.e.f. 05.01.2006. Its smelter is installed at
Jhagadia in Bharuch district of Gujarat. It is a scrap based electrolytic smelter
to make cathodes with a capacity of 50,000 tpy. The plant has an additional
capacity of 20,000 tpy copper anodes. Out of the total capacity, 6000 tpy output
is used for producing wires, strips, etc., 20,000 tpy are exported and 24,000 tpy
are sold in domestic markets. The plant is set up in technical collaboration with
Boliden Contech AB of Sweden.
3.3 PRODUCTION
3.3.1 Production of Ore
The history of production of base metals including copper is dated back
to ancient times. The presence of extensive dumps near the old working, huge
heaps of old slag are evidences of ancient copper mining in India particularly in
Khetri and Singhbhum are the silent testimonies of once thriving mining
activity. Both opencast and underground methods of mining were adopted. The
sulphide ores are very important. The primary mineral chalcopyrite and the
secondary mineral chalcocite account for lion's share of copper production in
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