ETH students visit our mines in Canada

Kidd Operations is a zinc producer that runs one of the world’s deepest base metal mines. Sudbury INO, which extracts nickel and copper ores, has two underground mines, a mill and a smelting plant. The Horne Smelter is one of the world's largest processors of used electronics containing copper and precious metals.

During their trip, the students had the opportunity to see things they had learned put into practice: how ore is mined underground, how specific minerals are extracted from it and how, in Sudbury, these are smelted into nickel and copper matte in granulated form before it’s sent to Glencore’s Nikkelverk, Norway to be processed further.

The students recorded their experiences in a blogpost on the ETH Zurich website. A few impressions of the visit in Sudbury INO can be found on these photos:

In summer 2019, we helped a group of ETH students organize their study trip to Canada and showed them around our zinc and nickel operations in Ontario and Quebec. As well as gaining insights into the geology of the region, they learned about the practicalities of mining.

We cultivate a culture of openness, so interacting with our stakeholders is an important part of our work. In summer 2019, a group of ETH students from the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG) student chapter asked whether we would help them organize their study trip to Canada. We were very pleased they had come to us, and we invited the group to visit our businesses Kidd Operations and Sudbury INO in Ontario and the Horne Copper Smelter in Quebec, both in the north of Canada.