Glencore's Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations (Sudbury INO) activities include exploration, Fraser Mine, Nickel Rim South Mine, Strathcona Mill and Sudbury Smelter. The company has been mining nickel-copper ores in the Sudbury area of northern Ontario, Canada, since 1928. The facilities are spread throughout the 60 kilometer-long, oval-shaped geological formation known as the Sudbury basin.
Nickel and copper are the primary metals but cobalt and precious metals, such as gold, silver, platinum and palladium are also produced.
Sudbury INO currently employs approximately 800 Unifor members.
Mining
There are two underground nickel-copper mines in Sudbury: Nickel Rim South and Fraser. The Nickel Rim South mine is currently Sudbury’s largest mining operation.
Milling
The Strathcona concentrator receives ore from the two Sudbury mines as well as third-party custom feed ores and produces two concentrate streams – a nickel-copper concentrate that goes to the Sudbury Smelter for smelting and a copper concentrate that goes to Glencore Copper for smelting and refining. The mill has a maximum capacity of approximately 2.75 million tonnes of ore per year.
Smelting
The Sudbury Smelter currently smelts Glencore Nickel nickel-copper concentrate from the Sudbury, Raglan and XNA (Australia) operations and processes custom-feed materials in the form of concentrates and secondary products. It is capable of producing 95,000 tonnes of nickel, copper and cobalt in matte annually. The smelted and granulated matte is sent by rail to large port facilities in Québec City, then shipped overseas to Nikkelverk in Norway for refining into pure metals.