3. Deposit development

Enrichment by physical and physico-chemical means, or mineralurgy, concerns 80% of primary copper. In most cases, this enrichment is carried out by flotation (figure 2 ). Pyrometallurgy processes the resulting concentrates by smelting.

Direct treatment of ores by chemical means, or hydrometallurgy, only concerns the remaining 20%, and applies mainly to oxidized ores (figure 3 ).