1. Mine the ore, crush it and grind it, then use flotation to separate out the worthless material from the valuable metals. This will leave a concentrate typically consisting of 5 to 20 percent copper and 2 and 10 percent nickel.

2. Smelt the concentrate in a blast or reverberatory furnace. The smelted material is defined by metallurgists as a matte.

3. Cool the matte, which will form into particles of nickel sulfide, copper sulfide and a metallic fraction. The metals can then be recovered by a combination of crushing, grinding, flotation and magnetic separation.