Florence Copper

In February 2026, Taseko announced the start-up of Florence Copper’s electrowinning plant and the commencement of copper production. In early March, Taseko announced the first copper cathodes were harvested, representing the first new copper production from a greenfield facility in the United States since 2008.

In January 2024, construction of the Florence Copper commercial production facility commenced.  This consisted of wellfield drilling as well as construction of the SX/EW plant, storage ponds, substation area and other surface infrastructure.

Throughout construction, 1,089,254 project hours were worked at site with zero lost time incidents or reportable environmental incidents.

Construction of Florence Copper’s commercial facility was completed on time at the end of  2025. 

In September 2023, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an Underground Injection and Control (UIC) Permit to Florence Copper.  At the time, the Project was one of the very few construction-ready, fully permitted copper projects in North America. With approvals in place from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and the EPA, Taseko began to mobilize contractors for the wellfield and SX/EW plant construction. 

Concurrent with operation of the PTF, Taseko advanced a permit amendment process to transition to full commercial production. In 2020, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality issued the final Aquifer Protection Permit (APP) for the commercial production facility.

In 2019, the first harvest of 3,700 pounds of copper cathode (32 sheets x 117 pounds) was made from the Florence Copper Production Test Facility (PTF). The copper sheets produced were assayed at more than 99.9% pure copper.

PTF operations at Florence Copper successfully demonstrated Taseko’s ability to produce high-quality copper cathode within the stringent environmental guidelines of federal and state permits. It also informed the positive economic projections for the project.

PTF wellfield operations commenced in 2018, with injection and recovery systems ramping up to full capacity within a short timeframe. By the end of the year, solutions were flowing at forecast levels and copper was detected in solutions recovered from process sample wells.

In 2017, Taseko initiated construction of a Production Test Facility (PTF) at Florence Copper. Construction of the PTF, which included 24 injection, recovery and monitoring wells and an SX/EW plant, was completed in the third quarter of 2018.