MONTREAL, March 30, 2026, 07:11 EDT
Canada and Quebec are moving to keep Glencore’s Horne smelter open after the miner threatened to shut the site over tighter pollution controls. Dow Jones, citing a Bloomberg report based on people familiar with the matter, said Ottawa is considering about C$150 million ($108 million) in support while Quebec weighs changes to emissions rules. 1
The fight matters beyond one Quebec town. RBC said Horne and its linked Canadian Copper Refinery are the only active copper smelter-refinery system left in Canada, and Charles Cooper, Wood Mackenzie’s head of copper research, called the site “absolutely instrumental” to North America’s copper market. Bloomberg reported the plant represents about 16% of regional smelting capacity, supports about 3,200 direct and indirect jobs, and feeds downstream users including Nexans’ copper rod mill near Montreal. 2
The outline under discussion would delay the new arsenic limit to 2029 and keep it there until at least 2033, people familiar with the talks told Bloomberg. The cap is 15 nanograms per cubic metre, a measure of arsenic in the air. Glencore said in an emailed statement that it remained open to financial risk-sharing while it waited for regulatory certainty, and a spokesperson for Industry Minister Melanie Joly described the smelter as a strategic asset. 3
The standoff turned acute in early February, when Glencore froze spending tied to emissions cuts and plant upgrades at Horne and pared back plans at its Montreal refinery. The company said it had been prepared to spend nearly C$1 billion over five years, including C$300 million on emissions reductions, but chief operating officer Marc Bédard said workers needed “clear direction” and the conditions to move ahead were not in place. 4
That pressure is not unique to Glencore. Rio Tinto said last week that U.S. copper smelting had become unprofitable, while Freeport-McMoRan has urged Washington to offer incentives for domestic processing. Smelters usually earn treatment and refining charges, or TC/RCs — fees for turning semi-processed copper concentrate into metal — but Reuters reported those charges have sunk so low that some plants are effectively paying for feed. 5
The squeeze is global. Mitsubishi Materials said on March 25 it would stop processing copper concentrate at its Onahama plant by the end of March 2027, blaming stronger overseas competition and collapsing TC/RCs. The move adds to signs that copper smelting is under pressure well beyond Canada. 6
A deal could still snag on public health and politics. Quebec’s own standard for arsenic in ambient air is 3 nanograms per cubic metre, and the province said in 2022 that the 15 ng/m3 target for Horne was only a first step toward that level. Reuters reported last year that the plant also faces a class action over emissions, adding legal and cleanup risk to any long-term fix. 7
Glencore has pushed back on criticism of the plant’s recent emissions trend. In a March 26 statement, environment director Marie-Elise Viger said “rigorous data analysis is essential,” while the company said arsenic levels at the official monitoring station fell 46.5% between 2022 and 2024. Vincent Plante, head of North American Copper at Glencore, said Horne’s current performance was “on par” with European smelters. 8
For now, the smelter is still operating under its current permit. But Reuters reported on Feb. 3 that without the halted projects it would become impossible to meet some targets that start in March 2027, and Glencore said in a Jan. 30 update that the next steps would depend on whether it could quickly secure a stable, realistic framework with Quebec. 9
