Metso's HRC 3000 reaches a major production milestone

448 Metso and Freeport-McMoRan celebrated an impressive milestone in Q2, 2017 as the new HRC3000, the world's largest operating high-pressure grinding roll, at the Metcalf Concentrator crushed its 100,000,000th short ton of ore.

The HRC 3000 started operating in May 2014 at the Metcalf Concentrator at Freeport-McMoRan's copper mine in Morenci, Arizona, USA, an open-pit copper mining complex that has been in continuous operation since 1939.

The HRC 3000 is the largest unit of its kind in the world, allowing for fewer lines of equipment which reduces the amount of ancillary equipment.

Metso's solution is said to have provided the Morenci mine with several benefits, including an estimated 13.5% increase in energy efficiency over traditional HPGRs based on pilot scale testing.