Inco closes copper refinery.Inco will be closing its Sudbury copper refinery by year's end. The nickel giant announced May 20 it is closing its 70-year-old Copper Cliff refinery operation in west end Sudbury and has signed a deal with an undisclosed Canadian company to refine Inco copper. Inco spokesman Cory McPhee says the refined copper coming from ores mined in the Sudbury Basin The Sudbury Basin, also known as Sudbury Structure, is the second largest known impact crater or astrobleme on Earth, and a major geologic structure in Ontario, Canada. The basin is located on the Canadian Shield in the city of Greater Sudbury, Ontario. will likely be shipped out of province. "Simply put, we've got an old plant with old technology, and it's very small, producing 115,000 tonnes of copper cathode annually. Most of our competitors produce between 350,000 and 500,000 tonnes a year. "Our costs are very high and we're physically constrained." McPhee says the plant's 140 unionized workers will be transferred to other parts of the Sudbury operation. "We know with the attrition rate Noun 1. attrition rate - the rate of shrinkage in size or number rate of attrition rate - a magnitude or frequency relative to a time unit; "they traveled at a rate of 55 miles per hour"; "the rate of change was faster than expected" we've experienced, we can absorb the remainder of the employees at the refinery into other areas." The United Steelworkers United Steelworkers (USW) historic labour union representing workers in steel, aluminum, and other metallurgical industries for much of the 20th century. In the U.S. Union wanted the refinery left open and campaigned for Inco to make the investment for major capital upgrades. "Inco owes it to the community to invest in upgrading the Copper Cliff refinery and to maintain employment." The Steelworkers say the refinery, which employs 140, is in need of major upgrades. Nickel Belt
Nickel Belt is an informal nickname for the Sudbury region in Northern Ontario, because of the belt of nickel ore deposits found in the area. MPP (Massively Parallel Processing or Massively Parallel Processor) A multiprocessing architecture that uses up to thousands of processors. Some might contend that a computer system with 64 or more CPUs is a massively parallel processor. Shelley Martel also weighed in, asking the McGuinty government to intervene and require Inco to refine Sudbury ore within the local community. That would have created a situation similar to the deal Inco struck with the Newfoundland-Labrador government, requiring Voisey's Bay nickel to be processed in that province. McPhee says the call for capital upgrades makes little sense, since copper is only a small part of their business and a new refinery would cost between $500 million and $600 million to build. "It just doesn't warrant the investment. We realize a greater return to selling the anode anode (ăn`ōd), electrode through which current enters an electric device. In electrolysis, it is the positive electrode in the electrolytic cell. anode Terminal or electrode from which electrons leave a system. for refinery elsewhere." Contrary to union news releases, McPhee says it is not raw copper that Inco would ship out but copper anode; copper that is milled, smeltered and casted into molds. "It's the last step in the process. It's the refining of that anode to copper cathode which then goes to market, we're looking at right now." www.inco.com By IAN ROSS Northern Ontario Business Northern Ontario Business is a Canadian magazine, which publishes monthly in Greater Sudbury, Ontario. The magazine covers business news and issues in Northern Ontario. |
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