Chino mine
Chino Mine, also known as Santa Rita or Santa Rita del Cobre, is an open‑pit copper mine in Santa Rita, New Mexico, about 15 miles east of Silver City. It sits at a high elevation of about 5,700 feet. The mine began in 1909 as the Chino Copper Company, started by mining engineer John M. Sully and Spencer Penrose. It is now owned and operated by Freeport-McMoRan Inc.
Copper has been mined at Santa Rita for a long time, with Apache, Spaniards, Mexicans, and Americans all extracting ore from the area. Modern open‑pit mining at Chino began in 1910. The site has a history of conflicts in the region, and a milling operation was first established in Hurley in 1911, later replaced by the Ivanhoe concentrator in 1982. Milling at Chino restarted in January 2004 after a three‑year shutdown caused by low copper prices. Solvent extraction and electrowinning (SX/EW) operations have run at the site since 1988.
A smelter in Hurley operated from 1939 and was modernized in 1985, but it was permanently closed in 2005. In 2008, Freeport‑McMoRan announced that mining and milling at Chino would be suspended, though reclamation work would continue and copper production would come from the SX/EW plant. About 600 of 830 workers were laid off in early 2009. The mine reopened in 2011, and by January 2014, the operation employed about 1,035 people.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 13:14 (CET).