Fortescue says it has sold more than 40 tonnes of copper concentrate cleaned using its Toowong Process, a patented hydrometallurgical method that separates arsenic from copper concentrate at low temperature and low pressure. The company acquired the technology in 2022 and has tested it over four years at its Brisbane demonstration plant, across seven campaigns and more than 3,000 hours, reducing arsenic levels to below 0.3 percent while retaining more than 99.9 percent of the copper. The first sold parcel contained less than 0.25 percent arsenic, from feedstocks carrying up to 7 percent.
Arsenic is a standing barrier in copper. Smelters refuse high arsenic concentrates or impose heavy penalties, and the conventional fix, roasting, is energy intensive and produces toxic arsenic bearing gas and dust that must be controlled. Fortescue says the Toowong Process offers comparable capital and operating costs to roasting with lower energy use and emissions, and captures the arsenic in a stable solid product instead.
The first commercial test the company names is its own Canariaco copper project in Peru, where trial concentrate is now being treated. At Canariaco, Fortescue says, the process could make more of the project’s concentrate marketable, support conversion of more resources into mining inventory and allow a more flexible, lower cost mine plan.
“The technology has the potential to make high arsenic deposits more economically viable,” said Gus Pichot, Fortescue’s growth and energy chief executive. The claim should be read at demonstration scale for now: 40 tonnes sold proves the product is saleable, not that the process runs at the hundreds of thousands of tonnes a year a large copper mine would need. Commercial engineering work, and the Canariaco results, are the evidence to watch.