On 22 February 2024, Tibet Julong Copper, a subsidiary of Zijin Mining Group, received official approval in relation to the upgrade and expansion project of Phase 2 of the Julong Copper Mine in Tibet, China which was issued by the Tibet Autonomous Region Development and Reform Commission.

The Julong Copper Mine was approved to expand upon its existing mining and processing project of 150,000 t/d by adding a new production scale of 200,000 t/d through upgrade and expansion, thus forming a total production scale of 350,000 t/d.

On the same day, the company convened the third extraordinary meeting in 2024 of the eighth term of the Board at which the proposal in relation to the implementation of the overall upgrade and expansion project of phase 2 of the Julong Copper Mine was considered and approved unanimously.

The estimated total investment amount is approximately RMB 17.46 billion (over US$2.4 billion), which will be self-financed by Julong Copper. After the Julong Phase 2 Project is completed and reaches the designated production capacity, the annual ore mining and processing volume of the Julong Copper Mine is expected to exceed 100 Mt, making it the largest in China in terms of mining and processing scale and the largest standalone copper mine to be put into operation in the world since 2000.

The annual mine-produced copper output of Julong Copper, which includes both the Julong Copper Mine and the Zhibula Copper Mine, is expected to increase from 154,000 t in 2023 to approximately 300,000-350,000 t; the annual mine- produced molybdenum output is expected to increase from 5,000 t in 2023 to approximately 13,000 t.

In the future, a Phase 3 project will also be planned and implemented for the Julong Copper Mine. If this project is approved by the relevant government authorities, the Julong Copper Mine can potentially achieve an annual ore mining and processing volume of approximately 200 Mt, making it the largest standalone copper mine in the world in terms of mining and processing scale.

The construction scope includes the upgrade and expansion of the existing mining system and dump, construction of a new Phase 2 Julong processing plant, Deqingpu tailings storage yard, 220 kV power transmission, transformation and distribution facilities, plus other supporting production and living facilities, etc.

Julong uses open-pit mining followed by copper-molybdenum flotation, copper-molybdenum separation, copper flotation, and- copper-sulphur separation. It is intended that silver will also be comprehensively recovered from the copper concentrates. It is expected that the construction will complete and the production will commence by the end of 2025 with a minelife of 36 years.

The mine is notable for many reasons not least that the mining takes place at 5,300 m plus, bringing major challenges for the workers and the equipment. Julong already has one of the most up to date mining fleets in China which is both internationally and domestically sourced including for electric rope shovels alone from Taiyuan Heavy (TYHI) three WK-12s, three WK-35s, one WK-45 and one huge WK-55 with a 110 t bucket capacity to load 220-363 t class trucks and having a 20.17 m boom.

The trucks are mainly from China’s market leader Inner Mongolia North Hauler Joint Stock Co (NHL) in Baotou. They include 34 NTE260 electric drive trucks equipped with QSK60 Cummins engines and Siemens (now Innomotics) drives. A number of fully autonomous trucks are now also running at the mine using technology from TAGE Idriver, which include new NTE240BAT units that number 12 units today; while Builder X has also enabled  remote control operation of one of the WK-35C shovels. The fleet management system at the mine was supplied by Beijing Soly – an intelligent mine production command centre was established at an altitude of 4,698 m while a 4G dedicated wireless network base station was built at 5,500 m.

Siemens (Innomotics) also supplied the power solution for a long distance thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions conveyor at the mine having 2 x 6,000 kW gearless drives generating 1,023 kNm of torque and giving a nominal speed of 56 rpm. thyssenkrupp (mining business now part of FLSmidth) also won the order to supply two sets of primary gyratory crushers. MTU also has Series 2000 engines on smaller 100 t class haul trucks from both XCMG and NHL at the mine (XCMG XDE110 and Terex TR100).

Metso supplied a full scope of advanced minerals processing equipment and an advanced process control system to Julong including six crushers, eight SAG grinding mills, eight ball mills and eight stirred mills, four vertical plate pressure filters and 16 vibrating screens, as well as related services like installation, start-up, commissioning and technical direction.