The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.
TIMMINS – The head of a proposed talc and magnesium mine anticipates creating hundreds of jobs in Timmins within the next two years.
General Magnesium Corp. is looking at three potential sites within Timmins to build a smelter. That facility alone would provide 500 jobs, said William Quesnel, the company’s chief executive, who was born in Moonbeam and raised in Timmins. And it’s not just the prospect of a new mine but potentially an end-user company establishing itself here as well.
“We’ve brought companies up to talk with the city and look at our site,” Quesnel told The Daily Press Monday. “We could be delivering molten metal to a party beside us who is making parts for vehicles or something like that. So, this story doesn’t stop at our project. It will form a base for what the City of Timmins is looking for which is other end users to come in.”
Quesnel said they are targeting a startup by the middle of 2014, “once we have definitive agreements in place.” The mine itself would be an open-pit operation employing an additional 40 to 45 people. It would be located approximately 12 kilometres west of the Kidd metallurgical site.
“We’re going to produce both talc and magnesite concentrate,” said Quesnel. “Initially we’re going to produce just talc to get cash flow in place, to partially fund further expansions.”
Within five years of initial production, the company is planning to add magnesite production.
“We’re going to take the magnesite and melt it to magnesium metal.”
In order to produce magnesium metal locally, the construction of a smelter will be required.
The annual production of magnesium would start at 500,000 tonnes and escalate to 1.2 million.
General Magnesium has been working on this project in consultation with the City of Timmins. The Timmins Economic Development Corporation presented three potential industrial sites in the Timmins area where a smelter could be established.
The locations being considered are the Kidd metallurgical site, a McIntyre Mine site and the Broulan site which is north of South Porcupine.
Quesnel said the company is still completing a review of the three sites.
“We’re hopeful by the end of the year, we’ll be able to” announce “we have a definitive agreement.”
Once a definitive agreement has been reached, Quesnel said the mine could be in production within 12 months.
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