Local economic contributions

Fostering regional development in our operating locale is a priority for us. At Horne Smelter, we primarily hire local labour and locally source as many of our purchases as we can.

At Horne Smelter, we have a local purchasing policy intended to enhance our community’s economic capacity, prosperity, and sustainable development.

Horne Smelter supports and encourages local and regional goods and services businesses by giving preference to locally or regionally based suppliers and contractors with a competitive offering. To that end, in 2021, we issued goods and services contracts to more than 250 regional businesses. More specifically, more than 45% of our spending with suppliers was in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, which represents an investment of more than $83 million in local businesses.

Every year that goes by shows our commitment to improving our smelter by developing and implementing innovative projects to help us improve our operational and environmental performance.

Over the past five years, we’ve invested more than $363 million in a variety of projects, one-third of which are environmental projects from year to year. And this performance is set to grow even more, with planned capital investments of about $360 million by 2024. With critical metals like copper set to play a pivotal role in new technology and green energy, we are determined to pursue our continuous improvement process to maximize copper recovery through recycling, and in so doing contribute to environmental protection.