Financial Services Association, June 12 (Editor Wong Kwan Chi) Kathleen Quirk, the new CEO of global copper giant Freeport McMoRan (Freeport McMoRan), said that as global demand rises, it is working to extract the value of a large copper mine from large stocks of waste stone to “actively” boost the supply of copper.

According to information, the US copper giant has made huge profits from its business in the US and Indonesia in recent years, which has sparked speculation that after years of wait and see, the company may use these return on investment for acquisitions.

However, Quirk said she didn't feel it was necessary to follow competitors such as BHP Billiton in seeking major transformational acquisitions. Instead, the company is betting heavily on technologies such as extracting copper from waste ore that it has accumulated over decades.

Quirk said that in the next three to five years, the company hopes to produce 800 million pounds of copper (equivalent to 360,000 tons) per year through this processing technology, equivalent to one-fifth of its current total production.

She just took office on Tuesday and became the only female CEO of a major global mining company.

“This is about the size of a large mine. It's very meaningful, and our team is very active in completing this work.” “I'm very concerned about this because as we look around, we know how difficult it is to develop new supplies,” she said.

“Waste ore refining”

Freeport's ambition responds to an increasingly pressing issue facing the industry and the world — copper is in short supply. Copper is the key to the energy transition, and some estimate that annual copper demand could double by 2035. However, metal producers have been reluctant to invest in new mines because the construction costs of new mines are getting higher and higher.

It is also because of this that producers such as Freeport have switched to “waste ore refining,” which was accumulated during decades of mining. BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto Group, and Antofagasta Plc (Antofagasta Plc) are all developing their own similar technology or collaborating with external parties to extract lower concentrations of metals that were previously unavailable.

Quirk said, “With the market so tight, there are no clearly viable projects that can fill this gap. This has prompted us to be more innovative and find ways to help fill this gap.”

However, Quirk notes that while the company is making progress, the difficulty of developing this technology has prevented the company from reaching its £800 million target.

“We think we'll achieve this goal; it's only a matter of time,” she said.