Asarco LLC shut down operations at its Hayden copper smelter after a partial roof collapse at the facility early Saturday morning, the company said late Monday.
There were no injuries in the pre-dawn incident, the Tucson-based copper producer said, and no damage was detected to two anode furnaces in the structure. Asarco said it did not expect any significant delays in fulfilling its June and July orders for copper as a result of the incident.
The cause of the roof failure at the smelting complex, 60 miles north of Tucson, is unknown, the company said. The Hayden smelter complex has been in operation for more than a century, but the building where the roof failed was constructed in the 1960s, said Asarco CEO Doug McAllister.
Asarco is the state's second-largest copper producer behind Phelps Dodge Corp., based in Phoenix.
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McAllister said no layoffs have been ordered as a result of the incident. Contractors are working to clean up the structure, and planning has begun for repairs, he added. He could not estimate how long repairs would take or when smelter operations might resume.
Asarco employees will work in maintenance and training duties while the repairs are made, McAllister said. The smelter normally employs about 350 workers.
State and federal work-safety agencies have been notified of the incident, he added.
Mines and concentrators at other Asarco properties, including the Mission mine, near Tucson, and the Ray mine, north of Hayden, are unaffected by the smelter shutdown, McAllister said.
Asarco, acquired by Grupo Mexico in 1999, filed for bankruptcy protection last year and now operates under the supervision of the federal bankruptcy court.