Sulphide deposits sit on broadly defined trends of mineralisation along basal brecciated rocks of the Sudbury Igneous Complex as pentlandite-pyrrhotite chalcopyrite rich concentrations as well as within the underlying footwall in fractured pathways as chalcopyrite dominated polymetallic (Cu, Ni, Au, Ag, Pt, Pd) vein-style sulphides. The total Mineral Reserve tonnage increased from 2016 due to the addition of the Onaping Depth deposit.

Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations (Sudbury INO) consist of two underground mines (Nickel Rim South Mine and Fraser Mine), Strathcona Mill and the Sudbury Smelter. All these operations are hard rock mines, with excellent rockmass quality. The depth of mining is sufficient to develop pervasive stress fracturing around most openings. Two mining method are used at Sudbury Operations depending on the spatial orientation of the orebody as well as size and geometries: - Cut and Fill mining is used when the orebody is dipping lower than 50o or sub-horizontally - Blasthole and Longhole is used when the orebody is above 50o. Nickel Rim South (NRS) is a modern mine using blast-hole open stoping with backfill as a means of bulk mining. Cut and Fill – Plan view Access x-cut are driven from main ramp and drifts to the ore zones. Ore is mined upwards by successive breasting cuts techniques. When the ore zone exceeds 11 m width post pillar pattern is applied. Post pillars (5m X 5m) are established between 11m width panels. These post pillars are carried through subsequent cuts. Cut and Fill – Cross section X-Cut distance from the main access permits to mine 5 cuts. First access is at -15% and other access by increment of 7.5% after to a maximum of +15%. Hydraulic backfill is used to fill finished cut. Blasthole & Longhole Stoping Blasthole mining is used where geometry and geologic confidence in the ore outlines are favorable. It is utilized to recover pillars located between areas mined by Cut & Fill or to recovery the top extremity of an ore zone. When ore is mined by blastholes drilled from the undercut with no overcut present (up drilling), the method is locally named Longhole stoping. Typically blasthole are 12 to 15 meters width by 15 to 30 meters height and average of 25 meters long. Slot raise are excavated with conventional method (Machines Roger or raisebore) and in some occasion in form of drop and inverse raises Holes diameter are 114 mm to a maximum length of 30 meters Holes are loaded with bulk emulsion explosives and initiated with I-Kon detonators.

The Glencore Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations Sudbury Smelter is located in Falconbridge, Ontario. The Sudbury smelter smelts nickel-copper concentrate from the Sudbury and Raglan mines and processes custom-feed materials.

Milling
The Strathcona concentrator receives ore from the two Sudbury mines as well as third-party custom feed ores and produces two concentrate streams – a nickel-copper concentrate that goes to the Sudbury Smelter for smelting and a copper concentrate that goes to Glencore Copper for smelting and refining. The mill has a maximum capacity of approximately 2.75 million tonnes of ore per year.

Smelting
The Sudbury Smelter currently smelts Glencore Nickel nickel-copper concentrate from the Sudbury, Raglan and XNA (Australia) operations and processes custom-feed materials in the form of concentrates and secondary products. It is capable of producing 95,000 tonnes of nickel, copper and cobalt in matte annually. The smelted and granula ........