Good news / Bad news.........but we have Sudbury's smelters!
TORONTO, Nov 30 (Reuters) - HudBay Minerals (HBM.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) may have to close its copper-smelting plant in northern Manitoba sometime in the next seven years because of regulations forcing steep emissions cuts, the Canadian company said on Friday.
The plant will produce 80,000 to 90,000 tonnes of copper metal this year, and that production isn't expected to slow until it is shut down, the company said.
Federal regulations will require the plant, which employs about 300 in the town of Flin Flon, to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions by 15 percent next year, and by a full 85 percent in 2015.
"Based on what we know currently we don't see an economic business case to be able to operate that smelter beyond 2015," Brad Woods, spokesman for the company, told Reuters.
Sulphur dioxide is the principal emission from copper smelting, and is a key environmental concern. The 80-year old plant accounts for about half of the man-made sulphur dioxide emissions in the Western Canadian province.
HudBay has also been under fire for arsenic contamination in the region's soil after the Winnipeg Free Press newspaper reported that its Flin Flon plant emits more toxic mercury and arsenic than any other plant in North America
To meet the reduction target, the company would have to build an adjoining acid plant to capture the sulphur dioxide and convert it to sulfuric acid, Woods said. "But it would require a very major investment on our part."
Currently, the company purchases and ships in copper concentrate from other mines so that it can run at full capacity.
Woods said that when the smelter shuts, HudBay would likely continue to mine the ore, then produce and sell the copper concentrate, rather than the finished metal.
Winnipeg-based HudBay employs about 1,700 in northern Manitoba. Woods declined to predict how many of those workers would be affected by closing the plant, which is Flin Flon's chief employer.
The company operates other mines and concentrators in Manitoba and neighboring Saskatchewan. It owns a zinc oxide production plant in Ontario, the White Pine copper refinery in Michigan, and the Balmat zinc mine operations in New York state. ($1=$1.00 Canadian) (Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Peter Galloway)
