Bingham Canyon copper mine. Bingham Canyon Mine is an open-pit mining operation south-west of Salt Lake City, Utah, in the Oquirrh Mountains. This mine, the deepest open-pit mine in the world, is owned by the Rio Tinto Group and managed through Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation. It has been in operation since 1906, with the excavations nearly a kilometre deep and four kilometres across. Photographed in July 2015.