Copper Smelting and Refining at Saganoseki Smelter

Abstract

In 1996 Saganoseki Smelter & Refinery integrated its two flash furnaces to one in order to reduce the operating cost and maintain the global competitiveness.
And then many improvements were carried out to expand the smelting capacity.
However, the copper content in concentrates had been decreased and also the anode production was limited.
Therefore, the next project, which is called SPI (Saganoseki Process Innovation) project, was needed and started in 2003. In this project not only the smelting section but whole series of the process were modified and the productivity had been improved remarkably.
The activity of SPI project and operational changes of Saganoseki Smelter & Refinery in the last decade are introduced in this paper.