CURRENT STATE OF PROCESSING COPPER CONCENTRATES

Experience with global economic development over the past 200 years, particularly in the second half of the 20th century, has shown that for most types of raw materials, it's not a question of depletion of reserves, but rather of their qualitative transformation. For many types of raw materials (copper, lead, zinc, and iron ore), there's a correlation between the content of the useful component and the total volume of the ore mass. An arithmetic decrease in the mineral content of the ore leads to an exponential increase in the volume of ore. Therefore, humanity will continue to explore for and develop new deposits, with global expenditures already exceeding $5.1 billion annually, as long as it remains economically viable, bringing ever-larger masses of mineral ores with low concentrations of the useful component into economic circulation.