Noranda (mining company)
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| Public | |
| Industry | Mining |
| Fate | Bought Falconbridge Limited; continued as Falconbridge |
| Successor | Falconbridge Limited |
| Founded | 1922 |
| Defunct | 2005 |
| Headquarters | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Products | Copper, gold, zinc, aluminum |
Noranda Inc. was a mining and metallurgy company originally from Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, Canada. It was listed on the under the symbol NRD.LV. After eventually acquiring a large interest in rival mining company Falconbridge, it merged with that company in 2005. The combined company continued under the name Falconbridge Limited, ending the Noranda name. Only one year later in 2006 Falconbridge was acquired by the Swiss-based mining company Xstrata. On 2 May 2013 ownership of Xstrata was fully acquired by Glencore.
Noranda was incorporated in 1922 as Noranda Mines under the leadership of James Y. Murdoch to exploit the Horne deposit, discovered by Edmund Henry Horne (E.H.Horne) on mineral claims he staked in 1920. Extraction of copper began on 17 December 1927. Although extraction was originally predicted to last for only three years, additional reserves (the gigantic "Giant H Orebody") were quickly discovered; the mine would form the backbone of Noranda's operations until reserves were exhausted in 1976.
Beginning in 1930, Noranda diversified by acquiring holdings in the forestry, oil, manufacturing, and automotive industries. In 1931, the company opened the CCR refinery in Montréal-Est, which processes all the copper produced by the Horne smelter. Noranda gained its first international property in 1938 with the purchase of the Empresa Minera de Nicaragua gold mine in Nicaragua. The company gained a large interest in Kerr Addison Gold Mines in 1945. In 1955 it opened the Gaspé Copper Mines, and in 1963 Canadian Electrolytic Zinc (CEZ), in which Noranda held a large stake, began production. In 1967, Noranda divested itself at $80 per share of its holdings in Denison Mines, which it had purchased in 1964 for $12 to $18 per share. A sum of $80mn was devoted to Potash mines in Saskatchewan, while $50mn purchased a 51% stake in the Brunswick Mining and Smelting Corporation earlier that year, as well as an investment in Pacific Coast Company, an aluminum products manufacturer based in Cleveland, Ohio.
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