Canadian Electrolytic Zinc (CEZ) refinery is one of the world's largest zinc refineries. It is located in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Québec, Canada, near Montréal. The facility's proximity to the largest zinc-consuming region in the United States provides a competitive advantage.

Falconbridge has a 25% interest in the refinery held through the Noranda Income Fund.

Operations
The CEZ refinery is a world-class facility with strategic size and location, unique products and low-risk technology. It has an annual capacity of 280,000 tonnes.

The refinery extracts and separates zinc metal from zinc concentrates and charges a processing fee for performing this service. The extracted zinc metal is either sold directly to end-users as commodity-grade zinc or further transformed into specific zinc-based products.

In 1992, the facility became the first zinc refinery in the world to obtain ISO 9002 certification for all steps of its zinc production process. In 2003, the zinc production process and the sulphuric acid plant received ISO 9001 certification.

2004 Production Rates
277,000 tonnes zinc metal

Flowsheets
Refinery Process (PDF – 65 KB)

Employees
The refinery employs approximately 800 people.

History
The CEZ refinery was commissioned in 1963. In 2002, Noranda created the Noranda Income Fund to acquire the CEZ refinery and ancillary assets from Noranda Inc. CEZ has been mandated by Noranda Income Limited Partnership to operate the refinery for the next 15 years. The Noranda Income Fund is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol NIF.UN. For more information, please visit www.norandaincomefund.com.