Glencore’s plan to wind down the 97-year-old Horne smelter in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, leaves Canada on the brink of losing its largest source of refined copper metal just as Ottawa tries to brand the country a critical-minerals hub.
The London-listed miner told Reuters it is “not currently considering the closure of the Horne smelter or CCR,” yet two sources say shutdown preparations are under way as modernization costs could top C$270 million per a Glencore spokesperson.
If the taps do turn off, domestic output would fall by roughly 17 percent, according to federal trade data, and buyers south of the border would scramble for replacement metal.
Copper Capacity Shrinks At Home
The Horne complex and the linked Canadian Copper Refinery employ more than 1,000 people and recycle about 100,000 tonnes of electronic scrap each year, a stream that otherwise risks ending up in Asian yards. Margins, though, have collapsed.
Spot treatment and refining charges flipped negative in 2024, meaning smelters now pay miners for concentrate instead of being paid to process it, a reversal that even record copper prices above US$11,200 a tonne cannot fully offset. Quebec’s tighter arsenic-emission limits add another bill. Glencore faces a class-action lawsuit over historical emissions, but management insists the closure talk is tied only to economics and regulation.
If Horne closes, Canada will refine less of its own concentrate and import more finished cathode, eroding the economic case for new downstream links such as copper foil for batteries. The timing is awkward. Ottawa’s Critical Minerals Strategy, updated in March, flagged copper as essential for electrification yet assumed smelting capacity would stay flat. A loss at Horne would turn that forecast into a deficit and could embolden Washington to press its own producers for concessions.
Competition Bureau Faces Bigger Test
Against that backdrop, the proposed US$53 billion merger of Anglo American and Teck Resources would concentrate even more of Western Hemisphere copper under a handful of global firms. The Competition Bureau confirmed on 15 September that it “will be reviewed” and that officials will examine likely anti-competitive effects.
The file already attracts Indigenous opposition in British Columbia, and now the potential loss of Horne gives critics a fresh argument: approving Anglo-Teck while a foreign major exits refining could leave Canada exposed to supply shocks and pricing power it cannot control.
Teck has promised that the combined Anglo-Teck would invest at least C$4.5 billion in Canada over five years and keep a global headquarters here, according to its merger circular. Yet those undertakings hinge on regulatory approvals and on commodity markets that reward mining, not smelting. If Glencore’s retreat signals that even integrated giants see little upside in Canadian processing, Ottawa may ask whether another foreign tie-up helps or hurts the national minerals chain.
Ottawa’s Strategic Dilemma
Policy makers now juggle two intertwined decisions: how far to subsidize aging smelters and whether to wave through further consolidation in upstream mining. Blocking Anglo-Teck would not save Horne outright, but it would buy time for a wider copper strategy that links public funding for clean-up and electrification to domestic processing commitments.
Pushing the merger through while Glencore packs up risks turning Canada into a concentrate exporter and a cathode importer just as electric-vehicle demand accelerates. The signals Ottawa sends in the next quarter will shape whether investors view Canada as a full-cycle copper nation or simply a quarry with good intentions.
