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.