A smelter with a long tradition
Boliden Harjavalta goes back a long way in Finnish industrial history. It began operations in Eastern Finland back in 1936. In 1944, during the Second World War, the business and per-sonnel were moved to Harjavalta and the first copper casting was made only six months later in 1945. The copper refinery started operation in Pori in 1941.
An entirely new, revolutionary energy-efficient flash smelting method for copper concentrates was developed in Harjavalta and introduced in 1949. The flash smelting method has been un-der continuous development over the years, and is today the most widely used smelting method for copper concentrates in the world. Ten years later, the smelter in Harjavalta was also the first in the world to begin flash smelting nickel concentrates.