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Inco Limited
Company typePublic (N)
IndustryMining
Founded(1902)
HeadquartersToronto, Ontario, Canada
Key people
Scott Hand, Chairman & CEO,

Peter Jones, President & COO, Robert Davies CFO, Peter Goudie, EVP - Marketing, Sandra Scott, Director - Investor Relations, Simon Fish, EVP - General Counsel & Secretary, Bruce Drysdale, VP - Government & Public Affairs,

Bill Napier, VP - Environment & Health
ProductsNickel, copper, cobalt, PGMs
RevenueIncrease$4.5 billion USD (2005)
Number of employees
11,700 (2005)
Websitewww.inco.com/
File:Inco Mine Manitoba.JPG
An Inco Limited nickel mine in Thompson, Manitoba.
The Inco Superstack in Sudbury, Ontario is the tallest freestanding chimney in the Western hemisphere.

Inco Limited TSXN NYSEN is a Canadian mining and metals company, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. It is the world's second largest producer of nickel, and the third largest mining company outside South Africa and Russia of platinum-group metals. A charter member of the newly expanded 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average (October 1, 1928), Inco was replaced by Boeing in 1987.

The International Nickel Company was founded in New Jersey, USA, in 1902 through the merger of Canadian Copper, the Orford Copper Company, the Société Minière Caledonienne, and others. Control was transferred to the International Nickel Company of Canada, Ltd., upon its founding in 1916. The International Nickel Company of Canada, Ltd., first began using the trade name Inco in 1919.

Inco began with the Canadian Copper Company following the discovery of copper deposits in Sudbury, Ontario. Initially, ore was shipped for smelting to a plant in Constable Hook, New Jersey owned by the Orford Copper Company. Processing soon revealed that the ore was also rich in nickel and exploration tests revealed an enormous potential. In 1902 the International Nickel created as a joint venture between Canadian Copper and Orford Copper. In 1916, the International Nickel Company of Canada was incorporated as the operating company in Copper Cliff near Sudbury, and in 1918 the company built a new refinery in Port Colborne, Ontario.

In 1929 the corporation underwent a major expansion by absorbing the British owned Mond Nickel Co. Head office was established in Toronto, Ontario. In 1972 the Inco Superstack was built in Sudbury. In 1976, the company’s name was officially changed to Inco Limited.

Currently, Inco has operations in twenty countries around the world including the Goro Nickel project area in New Caledonia and the Voisey's Bay nickel-copper-cobalt deposits in Labrador.

In order to generate cash Inco sold its manufacturing sites of nickel alloys to Special Metals Corporation in 1998. Special Metals Corporation however filed Chapter 11 in March 2002. Besides nickel, Inco produces copper, cobalt, platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, gold, and silver.

On October 11, 2005, Inco announced a proposal to buy out the operations of longtime rival Falconbridge for $12 billion. If approved, the deal would make Inco the world's largest producer of nickel.

Teck Cominco offered to purchase Inco on May 8, 2006 for $16 billion if it agreed to abandon its takeover of Falconbridge. On June 26 of the same year, Phelps Dodge offered to purchase a combined Inco and Falconbridge for around $40 billion.