North American Palladium Ltd. is a former Canadian mining company that operated between 1968 and 2019 and that since 1993 operated the Lac des Iles mine in the Lac des Îles igneous complex of the

Thunder Bay District Thunder Bay District is a district and census division in Northwestern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario. The district seat is Thunder Bay. In 2016, the population was 146,048. The land area is ; the population density was . Most ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. The company primarily mined and explored for

palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself na ...

but also for

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

Platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Pla ...

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...

, and

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

are mined as

by-products A by-product or byproduct is a secondary product derived from a production process, manufacturing process or chemical reaction; it is not the primary product or service being produced. A by-product can be useful and marketable or it can be consid ...

. The company was listed on the

Toronto Stock Exchange The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX; french: Bourse de Toronto) is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the 10th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America based on market capitalization. Based in the ...

but was acquired by

Impala Platinum Impala Platinum Holdings Limited or Implats is a South African holding company that owns several companies which operate mines that produce platinum and platinum group metals, as well as nickel, copper and cobalt. Its most significant mine is the ...

in 2019.

History

North American Palladium was founded in 1968 as Madeleine Mines Ltd. and was renamed to its current name in June 1993. The Lac des Iles mine began as an open pit mine in 1993. A new mill was commissioned at the mine in 2012, with mine's production rate increasing following that. Underground operations at Lac des Iles started in 2006. On October 21, 2008, the Lac des Iles mine was placed on "care and maintenance" due to declining metal prices.Infomine report on Lac des Îles
/ref> It was reopened on October 13, 2010. On May 26, 2009, the company acquired the Sleeping Giant gold mine through the acquisition of Cadiscor Resources Inc. On May 20, 2010, the company acquired the Vezza gold project, in the Abitibi region, from Agnico-Eagle Mines. The only other North America based palladium or platinum producer is Stillwater Mining Company, located in

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

, USA. North American Palladium Ltd. was purchased by Johannesburg-based Impala Platinum Holdings Limited for

CA$ The Canadian dollar (symbol: $; code: CAD; french: dollar canadien) is the currency of Canada. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, there is no standard disambiguating form, but the abbreviation Can$ is often suggested by notable style g ...

1 billion in 2019. Under the terms of the deal, Brookfield Business Partners was paid $570 million for its 81% stake in the company and minority shareholders were paid $19.74 per share. From that point on, the Lac des Iles mine would be operated by the new company called Impala Canada Limited.

References

{{reflist Companies formerly listed on NYSE American Companies formerly listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange Palladium mining companies Gold mining companies of Canada Platinum mining companies Silver mining companies of Canada Copper mining companies of Canada Nickel mining companies of Canada Companies based in Toronto Thunder Bay District Abitibi-Témiscamingue Companies established in 1993 History of mining in Ontario