EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – Mining industry leader Freeport-McMoRan invested $7 million to support the University of Texas at El Paso’s (UTEP) mining engineering degree program, the university announced on Tuesday, May 6.
The university said the gift will support the program’s development and implementation as UTEP restarts mining engineering to meet a national need.
“Mining is a $10 billion-plus industry in Texas. Energy that powers our electric system and aggregates that build our roads depend on mining. The smartphone in your pocket has about 30 elements in it including copper, gold, silver, lithium and cobalt as well as rare-earth elements that make the colors on the screen. America has a shortage of mining engineers who can find valuable minerals, get them out of the ground safely, and restore the land when mining is done,” UTEP President Heather Wilson said. “We are so thankful that Freeport-McMoRan has partnered with us to expand mining engineering for Texas and the nation by educating the next generation of mining engineers.”
“There’s no better place to jumpstart the mining engineering workforce than UTEP, home of the Miners,” Josh Olmsted, president and chief operating officer-Americas at Freeport, said. “Our partnership with UTEP is long-standing, with a number of UTEP alumni working throughout our global operations. We look forward to working with even more talented UTEP graduates to produce the materials that the global economy demands as they restart mining engineering.”
UTEP said that in September 2024, they announced its intention to relaunch its mining engineering program with a $20 million commitment from the University of Texas System Board of Regents.
Pending approval from UTEP’s accreditors and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the program is expected to launch in fall 2027 and will ramp up to admit 120 freshmen every year to graduate 100 mining engineers annually once fully established, the university said.
UTEP will be the only university in Texas to offer mining engineering, the university said.
The university said the program aims to fill the gap in the mining workforce.
In 2023, U.S. universities graduated only 312 mining engineers, but there will be an estimated 500 job openings annually over the next 10 years. The restart of the mining engineering program at UTEP will help close this gap, the university said.
UTEP said mining is a $700 billion industry in the U.S. and more than a $10 billion industry in Texas alone.
“UTEP will play a pivotal role in developing our nation’s workforce for this industry,” Ken Meissner, Ph.D., dean of the College of Engineering, said. “We are thankful to Freeport-McMoRan for this transformational gift in support of our students and future mining engineers.”
The UTEP College of Engineering enrolls over 5,000 students, 70 percent of whom are fluent bilinguals — an advantage for a global industry, the university said.
“The forthcoming degree is a return to UTEP’s roots. UTEP was founded as a mining school in 1914, but the program ended in 1964 likely as the demand for mining engineers in the region declined with swings in the copper market in the region. Since then, UTEP has become a major research university developing top talent for Texas and the nation, offering over 170 degree programs. The University has continued to teach related disciplines including geology, civil engineering, metallurgy and environmental science, which will make the reestablishment of mining engineering a good fit,” read the news release by UTEP.
Freeport-McMoRan is a major producer of copper and gold, as well as the world’s largest producer of molybdenum, a chemical element commonly used to make steel combined with other elements (known as a steel alloy), according to the news release.
UTEP added that the company is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, and operates across North America, South America, Europe and Indonesia.
In addition, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued the following official recognition of the gift from Freeport-McMoRan to support the revival of UTEP’s mining engineering degree program as an important step in securing the future vitality of the state’s economy and workforce.
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