Milestone expected to be reached in November; Nunatsiaq News takes tour to learn how ore is transformed
Agnico Eagle’s Meliadine gold mine is nearing a milestone. In November, the company projects the mine located near Rankin Inlet will have produced two million ounces of gold, said Pujjuut Kusugak, director of Nunavut affairs for Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd.
Two million ounces is just under 57 tonnes — or perhaps a more appropriate measurement for such occasions, approximately 28.5 small elephants. Nunatsiaq News was given a tour Oct. 2 of the above-ground part of Meliadine mine to learn how rock gets blasted, excavated, crushed and transformed via chemical reaction into such an enormous amount of gold.
The only part of the mine off limits was its gold refinery. That part of the establishment is not even open for most of the employees. Agnico Eagle acquired the site 25 kilometres north of Rankin Inlet in 2010 but started operation nine years later, in June 2019.
Over the past five years, the mine has been increasing its capacity and can now process around six tonnes of ore per day. That’s enough to make one 28-kilogram gold brick, roughly the size of a loaf of bread.
For the rest of this article: https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/agnico-eagles-meliadine-gold-mine-close-to-extracting-2m-ounces-of-gold/