Vale (NYSE: VALE), the world’s top producer of nickel and iron ore, is fine-tuning details to reopen its Voisey’s Bay open pit nickel mine and concentrator in Canada, next month.
Full capacity at the northern Labrador-based operation should be reached in August, the Brazilian mining giant said on Thursday.
Vale initially placed Voisey’s Bay mine on care and maintenance for four weeks as a precaution amid the fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic. It later extended the measure for up to three months, leaving an ongoing mine expansion project on hold.
Safety of remote Indigenous communities top of mind, company says
Brazilian mining giant Vale is placing its Labrador nickel mine under “care and maintenance” protocols for the next four weeks amid concerns about COVID-19.
The remote mine, just south of Nain on the northern coast of Labrador, has about 900 workers on site. It is accessible only by air, and has employees from all over Canada.
No employees have tested positive for the virus, but the company said it was taking steps to keep it that way.
Maritime Resources (TSXV: MAE) is considering processing feed from its Hammerdown gold project at the Nugget Pond gold plant owned by Rambler Metals and Mining Canada. Both the project and the plant are located in Newfoundland, in Canada’s Atlantic region.
In order to evaluate the possibility of using the plant, Maritime entered into a non-binding letter of intent with Rambler that includes an exclusivity period of 12 months for Maritime to assess the facility and complete a feasibility study with the option to negotiate a purchase agreement.
The gold plant is a small section of the total Nugget Pond concentrator plant and is not used to process ore by Rambler.
In November 2019, the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum’s Newfoundland and Labrador branch named Sokoman Minerals (TSXV: SIC) the Prospector/Explorer of the Year for its 100%-owned Moosehead gold property.
Moosehead, 150 km to the northeast of Marathon Gold’s (TSX: MOZ) Valentine Lake deposit in central Newfoundland, sits along the extension of the Cape Ray-Valentine Lake–Alder Zone structural trend.
Tim Froude, Sokoman’s president, optioned the 24-sq.-km project from Altius Minerals (TSX: ALS) in November 2017, and completed the earn-in for a 100% stake in February 2019. The company has drilled 88 holes (18,600 metres) since 2018.
On Feb. 15, 1965, a retired miner named Rennie Slaney sat down at his kitchen table in St. Lawrence, Nfld., and typed out a five-page, single-spaced document that, as Linden MacIntyre writes in The Wake, would reverberate “across the land.” The 58-year-old Slaney, who could no longer work because of severe health problems, laid out what had happened in recent decades to the people of his small community on the Burin Peninsula.
Addressing his testimonial to a special committee appointed by the government of Premier Joey Smallwood, Slaney mentioned a miner who died in hospital that very day, while another lay nearby, “just awaiting his time.”
Slaney himself, having worked in the mines for 23 years, was suffering from chronic bronchitis, obstructive emphysema, infective asthma and “a usually terminal heart disease caused by lung failure.” The man could step forward because, MacIntyre tells us, he had nothing left to lose: “His lungs were shot.”
All that glitters is not gold, but people in southwestern Newfoundland are hoping a future gold mine could be right on their doorstep. However, they still have plenty of questions about the plan by Matador Mining and about the impact it would have on the environment and traditional activities, such as hunting and fishing.
Matador has asked government for approval to develop a mine, mill and processing operation for gold ore in the area of Isle aux Morts. As part of the province’s environmental assessment process, the company held two public consultations last week.
Port aux Basques Mayor John Spencer said the impact on wildlife topped the list of questions from the nearly 70 people in attendance. “‘How would this impact the moose and caribou that frequent the area?’ ‘How would this impact the migratory birds?’ ‘What about the salmon?'” said Spencer.
Workers staying on floating hotel while work on new living quarters underway
The quest to mine nickel from beneath the ground at Voisey’s Bay in Labrador is picking up steam with more than 430 workers on site. Joao Zanon, the project director for Vale, said the team ran into challenges in the early stages of the project during the harsh northern Labrador winter.
Once the snow melted and summer arrived, the project ramped up. A little over 10 per cent of the underground development is now complete, with a goal to be operational in the first half of 2020.
“We’ve picked up the development quite a lot in the past months and the speed will continue to increase as we … are able to mobilize more people to work underground,” Zanon said.
As a journalist Linden MacIntyre covered adversity around the world, sharing the experiences of those caught in tragic circumstances, but he’s waited decades to bring the story of his hometown to the page.
The investigative reporter and novelist was born in St. Lawrence, N.L., where his new book The Wake is set. The author’s hard-rock miner father moved there in the 1940s to work for the fluorspar mining operation that rolled into the poverty-stricken community, which was recovering from a natural disaster and an unexpected collapse of the area’s crucial fisheries.
In 1929, an earthquake-related tsunami struck southern Newfoundland’s Burin Peninsula, washing homes out to sea and killing 28 people. The story of environmental destruction and industrial exploitation that followed is narrated in The Wake.
The provincial and federal governments announced new funding Friday for a project to provide hydroelectricity to a mining operation in western Labrador.
The province’s Department of Natural Resources said Nalcor will build a new terminal station and a 27-kilometre transmission line from the Menihek Hydroelectric Generating Station’s existing line to the Tata Steel processing site.
The transmission line will enable Tata Steel to reduce the mine’s diesel consumption by up to 40 per cent. Lisa Dempster, minister of municipal affairs and environment, says her department prioritized the project to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while encouraging resource development in Labrador.
Marathon Gold (TSX: MOZ) is on track to release a new resource estimate in September for its Leprechaun deposit in the company’s Valentine Gold camp in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The latest drilling has expanded the high-grade area within Leprechaun’s Main Zone corridor to a strike length over 480 meters with a width of 30 to 100 metres and extending to a depth of 350 metres.
Leprechaun is one of four near-surface deposits, mainly pit-shell constrained, at Marathon’s Valentine Gold camp, and remains open at depth and along strike. The four deposits stretch over a 20-km system of gold-bearing veins.
Labrador West has been injected with confidence, with iron ore extraction set to begin at the former Scully mine in June. Heavy machinery could be seen clearing land at the site Thursday, as Liberal leader Dwight Ball and Graham Letto, who is seeking re-election in the district, toured the mine.
“Things were kind of not stable in all the mining industry in the area, and today we are in the brink of reproduction,” said Letto.
The day after Graham Letto was sworn in as MHA for Labrador West, the pension plan was terminated. In 2014, an estimated 400 people working at the mine and concentrator in Wabush were notified by Cliffs Natural Resources that its operations would be shutting down.
Central Newfoundland mine proposal registered for environmental assessment
It’s a gold reserve glittering with job potential but the proposed Valentine gold mine in central Newfoundland is several years away. The undertaking was registered this week for environmental assessment under the provincial Environmental Protection Act.
Marathon Gold Corp. is the Toronto-based gold exploration company proposing to develop the gold mine roughly 55 kilometres southwest of Millertown in central Newfoundland. The net present value of the project is about $500 million USD.
“It’s a major gold deposit, certainly the largest in Newfoundland and Atlantic Canada and it really stands out as one of the top projects in North America,” president and CEO Phillip Walford said in a telephone interview from Toronto Wednesday.
With millions budgeted for everything from equity investments to offshore seismic work to new training programs, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Liberal government is continuing to bet heavily on the natural resources sector.
And making zero apologies for doing so, amid a clarion call about the dangers of climate change and the burning of fossil fuels. Budget 2019-20 was presented Tuesday in the House of Assembly, laying out a road map for growth in oil and gas, and mining.
Both sectors employ thousands of people and contribute billions to the province’s fragile economy. But these investments won’t come cheap.
The provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador plans to kick-start the province’s mining sector through envisioning five new mines, revamping decades-old legislation and creating 1,400 jobs by 2030. Julian Turner reports on the drive to put this far-flung corner of Canada on the mining map.
The province of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) is renowned for its fishing industry, the rugged, uncompromising beauty of its coastline and weather, its unique dialect and the warmth of its people, all of it immortalised in E. Annie Proulx’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Shipping News.
Less well publicised is that the most easterly province of Canada is home to a sporadic mining sector. Ground was broken on the first mine in the small town of Tilt Cove in 1864 and more than 150 years later a total of 11 mines produce 14 separate commodities, including iron ore, nickel, copper, cobalt and gold, while the industry in NL directly employs 4,800 people.
The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame was conceived by the late Maurice R. Brown, former editor and publisher of The Northern Miner, as a way to recognize and honour the legendary mine finders and builders of a great Canadian industry. The Hall was established in 1988. For more information about the extraordinary individuals who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, please go to their home website: http://mininghalloffame.ca/
James Gill secured a place in mining history through the exceptional success and staying power of Aur Resources. In 1981, he made a timely decision to launch his own company and begin the hunt for projects with potential to become producing mines. With a PhD in economic geology and early career experience with senior companies, he brought strong technical skills and a disciplined approach to corporate management to his newly incorporated junior.
Aur began life with $250,000 of seed capital, which Gill parlayed into a large land package in Quebec’s Val d’Or mining camp. Aur became a modest-sized gold producer through discoveries and mine acquisitions, but the big breakthrough came in 1989 with the Louvicourt copper-zinc discovery. Gill’s entrepreneurial energy came to the fore as Louvicourt was developed into one of Canada’s premier copper-zinc mines. He continued to develop and acquire mines in Canada and abroad until 2007, when he negotiated a $4.1 billion buyout of Aur by Teck Resources.
http://www.pendaproductions.com/ This video was produced by PENDA Productions, a full service production company specializing in Corporate Communications with a focus on Corporate Responsibility.
Mining was part of Gill’s DNA, as his grandfather James E. Gill (a 2003 CMHF inductee) was a successful consulting geologist and an influential professor of economic geology at McGill University. Born in Montreal, James W. Gill is a McGill graduate with a BSc degree (1971) and a MSc degree (1976). He also earned a PhD from Carleton University in Ottawa.
(LtoR) James W. Gill receiving the award from Anthony Vaccaro, CMHF Director and Group Publisher, The Northern Miner Group at the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame dinner on January 10th. Keith Houghton Photography.
