Rock to product, traced
★
The Materials Atlas
Materials Mines & deposits Processing & refining Custody journeys Supply chains Companies Countries News
Materials by shelf Battery Materials Rare Earth Elements Copper & Electrical Semiconductor Materials Nuclear Materials Aerospace & Defence Precious Metals Steel & Alloy Metals Industrial Minerals Agricultural Minerals Energy Raw Materials Ore minerals Periodic table
Demand End markets Technologies Material calculator Maps Screener
Learn & tools LearnGlossary Ask the DataAI agents Research & dataAPI ★ Saved
About About usMethodology Data sourcesContact Disclaimer
Reading options
🧭 Guided View New to this — ore grades, concentrate, refining, by-products? We explain every term as you browse, in plain English. Same data, with the help built in.
⚡ Expert View You already know the industry. Just the data — clean, fast and compact, with no extra explanations. This is the default view.
Theme
Interface language
Depth Material pages are written at four levels. Pick one on any material page and it is remembered.
★ Saved Research & data
Cerro Verde

Peru · South America

Cerro Verde

One of the largest concentrator complexes in the world by throughput.

Aréquipa maniestation des travailleurs de la Mine de Cerro … · Pierre André Leclercq · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Copper · primaryMolybdenum · by-productSilver · by-product

What this place is

Cerro Verde's 2015 expansion made it one of the highest-throughput mills anywhere — the modern answer to declining grade is simply to process more rock per day.

Grade. Low grade offset by very large scale.
A porphyry copper system, in cross-section
open pit leached and oxide cap supergene enrichment — the richest zone primary sulfide: chalcopyrite in fractures the intrusion that drove it 0 m~300 m ~1 km
A body of magma cools a few kilometres down, cracks the rock above it, and drives metal-bearing fluids up through the fractures. The result is a huge, low-grade volume rather than a rich vein — which is why porphyry mines are enormous open pits. Schematic. Real systems are 1–5 km across and the zones grade into each other rather than sitting in neat bands. Original diagram, The Materials Atlas.
“Grade” is the percentage of the useful stuff in the rock. A copper mine at 0.5% grade throws away 199 tonnes of rock for every tonne of copper it sells. That single number decides whether an orebody is a mine or just an interesting piece of geology.

What comes out

Copper

Copper

The reddish metal that carries electricity better than anything except silver, and which humans have been smelting…

PrimaryCu
Molybdenum

Molybdenum

A silvery metal added to steel so it keeps its strength at high temperature and under pressure.

By-productMo
Silver

Silver

The best electrical conductor there is, and the metal that has been used as money for longer than almost anything…

By-productAg

A “by-product” is a metal recovered because it happens to be in the same rock, not because anyone went looking for it. Its supply therefore follows the primary metal’s economics, not its own.

Who owns it

CompanyRoleInterest
Freeport-McMoRan MinerMajority owner

As publicly reported by the operators. Ownership of large mines changes; verify against current company filings before relying on it.

Materials

All materials Critical minerals Rare earths Battery materials Ore minerals Periodic table Screener

The ground

Mines & deposits Processing & refining Countries Maps

The economy

Custody journeys Supply chains End markets Technologies Companies Material calculator

Learn

LearnGlossary Ask the DataAI agents Research & dataOpen API News★ Saved

About us

About usContact MethodologyData sources Editorial policy Privacy policyTerms of use Disclaimer