In the midst of a bleak economy and big losses in construction jobs, Arizona's copper star is shining brightly.
Employment in the state's copper industry increased 25 percent last year, according to the annual report prepared for the Arizona Mining Association.
From 2006 to 2007, jobs in the copper industry rose from 8,200 to 10,300.
Driving that growth is the soaring price of copper, which jumped from an average spot price of less than $2 a pound in 2005 to more than $3 per pound in 2006, in large part due to seemingly insatiable demand from China.
Prices rose 4 percent in 2007, to an average of $3.23 last year. Spot copper closed Friday at $3.76 per pound.
The future looks even brighter: Citigroup Inc. this week raised its copper price forecast for 2009 by 43 percent, saying the metal will average $5 a pound next year as supply constraints boost prices, Bloomberg News reported.
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Such handsome prices are translating into big money for Arizona.
The direct impact on the state was more than $3.2 billion in 2007, says the study by George Leaming of the Western Economic Analysis Center in Marana.
"The strength of the copper industry has benefited all of Arizona," Sydney Hay, president of the Arizona Mining Association, said in a statement. "The impact is really substantial with copper producers providing growing payrolls, paying more taxes and increasing their purchases of goods and services from other Arizonans."
The state's copper employees earned more than $570 million in wages and salaries in 2007, up 24 percent from 2006, Leaming said.
Southern Arizona's biggest mining employers are Phoenix-based Freeport- McMoRan Copper & Gold, with 5,840 full-time-equivalent employees, and Tucson-based Asarco LLC, with 2,185 employees in 2007.
Paychecks average $40,000 or more, according to the Arizona Department of Commerce.
Numerous mining job fairs have been held in Tucson this year, and Leaming said he expects big gains in employment through the end of the year.
Arizona has 402 mines in operation, from gravel quarries to large, open-pit copper mines, according to the Arizona Department of Mines and Mineral Resources.
But copper — used in everything from vehicles to computer wires to electricity connections — is the mineral everyone seems to want, and multiple projects have been proposed or are at different stages of development.
The region of Arizona, New Mexico and Sonora is the world's second-richest source of copper after Chile, according to geologists.
Resolution Copper Mining expects to yield up to 600,000 tons of copper a year, for at least 40 years from a copper deposit more than 7,000 feet below the surface near Superior.
Freeport-McMoRan is looking at the possibility of reopening the Lavender Pit in Bisbee, which has been dormant for 30 years, and Augusta Resource Corp. is proposing a new open-pit mine in the Rosemont Valley southeast of Tucson.
Next month, Tucson-based Nord Resources Corp. plans to start production at Johnson Camp Mine, about 60 miles east of Tucson between Benson and Willcox.
shining star for Arizona
By the numbers
10,300
Arizona copper mining jobs in 2007
25
Percent increase in jobs from 2006
$3.2 billion
Direct impact of copper mining in Arizona