Julong copper mine HPGRs at 4,000 m: design and performance notes for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan

First reported on International Mining – News
30 Second Briefing
High‑altitude installation of two CITIC Heavy Industries HPGR units at Zijin Mining’s Julong copper mine in Tibet is reported as successfully commissioned, replacing conventional cone crushing of hard SAG mill pebbles. Operating at over 4,000 m elevation, the HPGRs are designed to treat very hard porphyry copper ore, improving pebble‑crushing capacity and generating finer product for downstream ball milling. The project signals growing confidence in HPGR performance under low‑oxygen, low‑temperature conditions, with implications for power draw, wear behaviour and maintenance planning at high‑altitude sites.
Technical Brief
- In the traditional mineral processing circuit, the crushing of very hard rock pebbles – that are on the one hand too large to be crushed by mill balls and on the other by larger ore fragments in the SAG mill – is completed by a cone crusher, and the crushed material then needs to be
Our Take
Zijin appears frequently in our mining database not just for copper but also for gold and coal, and the Julong copper mine HPGR deployment sits alongside its recent moves into autonomous haulage at Norton Gold Fields and hybrid truck fleets in Ghana, signalling a group-wide push on productivity and energy efficiency technologies.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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