RE:RE:RE:RE:Top notch posts Waffles Here you go...
https://investingnews.com/daily/resource-investing/base-metals-investing/copper-investing/copper-refining-from-ore-to-market/
Copper is one of the few metals that can occur in "native" form (along with gold and silver). That's one reason the world had a "copper age." People could find essentially pure copper in the ground and beat it into tools and other useful objects. The world's largest native copper deposits were in the upper Michigan penninsula, and the copper was traded by pre-Columbian inhabitants all over the Americas. Many of the copper "boulders" ran into the multiple tons.
Ores vary by their chemical composition and difficulty to process. They can be sulphides (bornite, chalcocite, chalcopyrite, digenite, or covellite with the general formula Cu(x)S(y) or Cu(x)FeS(y); or oxides such as malachite, azurite, or cuprite. Oxides and sulphides are extracted differently, The oxides are generally acid leached to produce an intermediate copper sulfate product whereas the sulphides go through a number of beneficiation states to produce a concetrate for smelting. Untimately, 99.99% pure copper is produced by electroplating copper from solution into "cathode," the "raw" end product. Ores low in certain impurities are particularly prized because they are less expensive to process. The ore concentrate from Ivanhoe's Kamoa/Kakula project in the DRC will be able to command a premium price due to its nearly non-existent arsenic content.