Phelps Dodge Refining Corp history

Phelps steered his fledgling empire grimly through a seven-year panic that began during 1837.

Before long, Phelps started a manufacturing company in Connecticut called the Ansonia Brass and Battery Company, and in 1845 he helped organize the Ansonia Manufacturing Company, which produced kettles, lamps, rivets, buttons, and other metal items.

A large increase in domestic iron production during the 1890s plus a two cents tariff on each pound of imported tin plate instituted in 1890 combined to make profitable metal markets hard to find.

In 1908 the old Phelps, Dodge & Co. partnership was dissolved, to be replaced by a corporation called Phelps, Dodge & Co., Inc.

With all enterprises operating at capacity, the Bisbee miners went on strike in July 1917.

Phelps Dodge bought Arizona C opper and merged it with its Morenci holdings in 1921 in exchange for 50,000 shares of capital stock.

By 1925 business expansion was demanding record amounts of copper.

1931: Calumet & Arizona Mining Company is acquired.

Sales reached $75.5 million, yielding total income of $15.5 million, and the number of employees, recorded in mid-1938, reached about 9,000.

Already looking towards the war's end in 1944, the company began to b uild the Horseshoe Dam on the Verde River, about 55 miles northeast o f Phoenix, Arizona, to allow for water conservation while filling the needs of its Morenci operations.

Phelps Dodge's contribution to this effort was the Lavender Pit mine, opened in 1954 to develop an extension of the Bisbee operations know n as the Bisbee East orebody.

By 1956 Lavender Pit produced 80.3 million pounds of copper.

By the end of 1963, this policy yielded $327 million in sales, from annual production reaching 261,400 tons.

By 1965 the price of copper rose from 34 cents to 36 cents per pound.

Company chairman Robert Page handed the helm to George Munroe in 1969.

Though the aluminum enterprise produced 17 fabrication plants by 197 0, the company foresaw little long-term profit in it, and therefore m erged its company with the Consolidated Aluminum Corporation in 1971.

By 1973 Arizona anti-pollution laws required $17 million worth of emission-control adaptations to this smelter, although the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was still undecided about its requirements.

In the first quarter of 1982 the company revenues showed a $19.1 million deficit.

Also providing profitable diversification was Accuride Corporation, a manufacturer of steel wheels and rims for trucks and trailers, which merged with the company in 1988 at a cost of $273 million.

By the end of 1989, the company had an income of $267 million, on sales of $2.7 billion.

Expansion of this business was achieved through acquisition and expansion, beginning in 1992 with the purchase of three Venezuelan wire and cable manufacturers and the establishment of a wire and cable plant in Thailand.

The investment in the Phelps Dodge Industries division paid off handsomely in 1995, as the company's carbon black, truck wheel and rim, and wire and cable businesses each registered a record high in sales.

In 1996, Phelps Dodge's manufacturing businesses continued to perform admirably, with the exception of Accuride Corporation, which suffered from weak demand for heavy wheels.

According to Community Board 5 Chairman Francis Principe, who testified on the subject at a 1997 City Council Subcommittee meeting on Finance and Hazardous Waste, “a phase one state Superfund investigation was completed” and “high levels of lead and cadmium” were found in soil samples.

Copper prices hit unfamiliar lows in 1999, due to the lingering effec ts of the Asian financial crisis.

Douglas C. Yearley retired as chairman in May 2000 and was succeeded by J. Steven Whisler.

Company headquarters was relocated from Tempe to ten floors in the ne w 20-story, $78 million Phelps Dodge Tower in downtown Phoenix in November 2001.

Phelps Dodge announced an $850 million expansion to a Peruvian mine in October 2004.