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Horne Smelter

Notre histoire

Historical highlights for Horne Smelter

  • 1911

    Edmund Horne’s first trip to the Lac Osisko area

  • 1920

    Horne’s fourth trip and first staking of 70 acres

  • 1921

    Fifth trip and discovery of gold deposit

  • 1922

    Noranda created on May 1

  • 1923

    First diamond drilling and discovery of a copper deposit

  • 1926

    Construction of smelting plant and drilling of production well No. 3 begin

  • 1927

    First copper cast on December 17

  • 1973

    Continuous smelting plant (reactor) starts production

  • 1976

    Final tonne of ore extracted from Horne Mine on July 26. Total production for Horne Mine from 1926 to 1976: 53.7 million metric tonnes of ore, 1.131 million metric tonnes of copper, 325,240 kg of gold, 693,600 kg of silver

  • 1984

    Construction and start-up of electronics recycling circuit

  • 1989

    Sulfuric acid plant begins production

  • 1992

    Automatic casting wheel starts up in July

  • 1997

    Noranda converter becomes operational in November. Gallen Mine (zinc) reopens

  • 2013

    Glencore acquires Xstrata. Horne Smelter now belongs to one of the world’s largest diversified natural resource companies

  • 2016

    Horne Smelter becomes certified as ISO 14001:2015 compliant in environmental management

  • 2017

    On December 17, 2017, Horne Smelter celebrated the 90th anniversary of its first casting. Over these 90 years, the smelter produced: 12,404,390 tonnes of copper, 40,614,617 ounces of gold, 847,040,998 ounces of silver

  • 2019

    Construction begins for VELOX pilot project

  • 2021

    VELOX pilot project commissioned

On December 17, 2021, Horne Smelter celebrated the beginning of its 95th year. 2022 will be a year of celebration and festivities to mark the anniversary of the only copper smelter still operating in Canada—the smelter that created the town of Rouyn-Noranda.

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