Teck Cominco smelter

The Teck Cominco smelter, also known as the Teck Cominco Lead-Zinc Smelter, Cominco Smelter, and Trail smelter located in Trail, British Columbia, Canada, is the largest integrated lead-zinc smelter of its kind in the world.[1][2] It is situated approximately 10 mi north of the border between British Columbia, Canada and Washington, in the United States, on the Columbia River. It is owned and operated by Vancouver, British Columbia-based Teck Cominco Metals Ltd—renamed Teck Resources.[2]

Since 1896, there has been a copper and gold smelting operation in the area.[1] The original company, Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada, was founded in 1906 through a merger of several entities then under the control of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).[3] In July 2001, Cominco and Teck Resources merged and in 2008, Teck Cominco renamed itself as Teck.[4] By 2018, the Teck Cominco smelter complex had been in operation for over a century. It provided 1,400 jobs in 2018, making it the largest employer in the small city of Trail, with a population of 7800. In 2017, the smelter produced more than 230,000 tons of zinc, which is used in rustproofing both iron and steel. Teck reported that they had invested CA$525 million in the late 2010s to "improve efficiency and performance at its Trail Operations" and that they intend to invest an added CA$150 million. The Trail Operations contributed CA$169 million to Teck Resources CA$3.3-billion gross profit in 2017.

Overview

The original Trail smelter for the nearby Rossland mines, was founded by the American mining engineer F. Augustus Heinze (1869 – 1914) who had already built a smelter in Butte, Montana. In 1896, Heinze initially incorporated his smelting and mining company in the United States and then in Canada. Within a period of 4 years, Heinze owned the "smelter, mining interests, railway lines, railway charters, and associated land grants." Walter Hull Aldridge (b. 1867), an American mining and metallurgical engineer, took a position with the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), Sir William Van Horne,[5] to negotiate a deal with Heinze. Under Aldridge's direction, the CPR's mining interests were incorporated under the name of the Consolidated Mining & Smelting Company, then known as the Consolidated or CM&S.[5] At that time, Consolidated "controlled many of British Columbia's largest lead, silver, gold and copper mines, as well as the large reduction works at Trail."[5]

In 1910, CM&S anticipated the decline of its Rossland mines and purchased the lead-zinc ore-rich Sullivan Mine.

See also

• Teck Resources
• Trail Smelter dispute