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ASARCO LLC is a mining, smelting, and refining company based in Tucson, Arizona that mines and processes primarily copper.
The company which is a subsidary of Grupo México is currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In 2008 ASARCO plans for emerging from bankruptcy have called for it to totally liquidate its mining and industrial assets (a move opposed by its own parent company).[1]
Its three largest open pit mines are the Mission, Silver Bell and the Ray mines in Arizona. Its mines produce 350 to 400 million pounds of copper a year.
It conducts solvent extraction/electrowinning at the Ray and Silver Bell mines in Pima County, Arizona and Pinal County, Arizona and a smelter in Hayden, Arizona. Before its smelting plant in El Paso, Texas was suspended in 1999 it was producing 1 billion pounds of anodes each year.
Refining at the mines as well as at a copper refinery in Amarillo, Texas produce 375 million pounds of refined copper each year.
Its name is attached to 20 superfund sites and it is subject to considerable litigation over pollution.
Asarco owns the Bismuth drop shot patent.
United States Patent 5540749
Link to this page:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5540749.htmlAbstract:
A method is provided for producing bismuth and bismuth alloy shot particles by a procedure whereby molten bismuth at a temperature less than about 100° C. above the melting point of the bismuth is used to form drops of molten bismuth which fall through a vessel containing a material more viscous than water with the method having a Reynolds Number less than about 100. Preferred materials are polyethylene glycols having a molecular weight of about 4500 and 8000.
