Saskatchewan Mining

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

ROCANVILLE, SASK. — Deep inside a mine, a fire is serious. Circulation systems keep air moving in a steady breeze, and smoke spreads fast. Light a cigarette in one part of the mine and it won’t be long before someone a kilometre away knows what you’re doing.

So, when the emergency system in Potash Corp.’s Rocanville mine activated alarm lights and bells just before 2 a.m. Tuesday, Jamie Johnson did not wait around. Mr. Johnson was lead hand on a three-man crew running a miner, the large machine that burrows through the earth. Flames had erupted 300 metres away in a large wooden cable reel, producing noxious smoke from plastic insulation burning on a 30-metre-long, six-centimetre-thick electrical cable.

He didn’t yet know that. He did know he had to act fast. This was only the second time he had experienced an emergency below ground in nine years.

Mr. Johnson grabbed the phone located on the miner and called the control room. He was told to move to a refuge station – number 13 in his case, or lucky 13 as he would later joke, when he and 19 other miners were brought to the surface 24 hours after their shifts started.

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After more than 16 hours trapped underground at the Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan mine in Rocanville, Darwyn Wirth admitted he was tired. And that he wanted a cold beer.

Wirth, a shift electrician with Potash-Corp from Churchbridge, was one of 15 miners brought to the surface at 6: 42 p.m. on Tuesday. His shift started just over a day earlier at 6: 30 p.m. on Monday. At 1: 56 a.m. Tuesday morning his normal work day was interrupted when a fire broke out in the mine.

Twenty-nine miners were midway through their 12-hour shift when the fire alarm sounded. Nine miners were immediately evacuated, however the remaining 20 men sought safety in four refuge shelters throughout the mine. At 8: 15 p.m., the remaining five miners were brought to the surface.

The area where the fire broke out was 15 kilometres from the main Rocanville site and the shaft where workers enter and exit the underground mine. Wirth was the first person to spot the fire. He said at no point was he worried and described the experience as being “delayed” rather than trapped.

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The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

NEAR, ROCANVILLE, SASK. and TORONTO – Darwyn Wirth was driving down a mine travelway a kilometre beneath the Saskatchewan prairie when he saw fire. It was, he said, “a fairly large ball of flame.” Something had gone wrong deep inside the mine workings at Potash Corp’s Rocanville mine.

Mr. Wirth, a shift electrician, knew it was more than he could handle with a fire extinguisher. He retreated to a phone, notified the control room and sought safety in a refuge station.

Almost exactly 24 hours after his shift began early Monday evening, he emerged from the shaft, after workers put out the underground flames – which had erupted from a trio of cable reels – unscathed, and with a story to tell.

“There was two other gentlemen in the refuge station with me. We basically just spent time talking to each other, and at one we were allowed to call our spouses, which was nice,” he said. Their discussion, he added, included “anything but fire.”

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Contrary to Premier Brad Wall’s spin, BHP Billiton’s decision to delay making a final go-ahead decision on the massive Jansen potash mine should not be somehow misconstrued as good news.
 
When the globe’s biggest mining company is suddenly struggling and putting on hold its decision to build a $13 billion mine in your jurisdiction, it’s anything but good news. If anything, the Billiton announcement adds credence to the notion that Saskatchewan’s eight-year boom might be done.
 
That said, Wall did provide a few compelling points as to why this isn’t necessarily the worst news. The premier’s Grant Devinesque optimism came in reaction to news emerging from Billiton’s six-month financial report, which showed a 58 per cent drop (or about $5.5 billion decline) in profits, largely due to weak prices for the copper, iron ore, coal, nickel, aluminum and natural gas it produces. As a result, the mining giant announced it was cancelling expansions to Australian iron ore and copper operations, pegged at a combined $50 billion, and would delay final approval of Jansen until next year, at the earliest.

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The company that’s building the first new potash mine in Saskatchewan in 40 years is the same company that helped build the last new potash mine in the province in the 1970s, before it was taken over by the then-NDP government to become Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan’s Lanigan mine.
 
But Nobert Steiner, CEO of K+S Group of Kassel, Germany, which is building the $3.25-billion solution potash mine near Bethune, 80 km northwest of Regina, says there are no hard feelings about the forced sale of the former Alwinsal mine to the Blakeney government for $76.5 million in 1977.
 
“Even more than a generation later, you can hardly believe that such an act could happen in a country belonging to the western world,’’ Steiner told participants at a sod-turning ceremony at the Legacy project site Tuesday. “However, after so many years, we are not looking back in anger anymore.’’
 
In fact, Steiner said K+S, which first came to Saskatchewan in the 1960s and started producing potash in 1968, was welcomed back to the province by none other than Premier Brad Wall. (Steiner said the K in K+S stands for Kali or potash in German, while the S stands for Salz or salt.)

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The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

CALGARY— BHP Billiton Ltd.’s (BHP-N60.84-0.72-1.17%) move to reconsider major spending plans may delay the construction of a promised potash mine in Saskatchewan, another sign the commodity “supercycle” is gearing down as slower global growth cools demand.
 
The Jansen project, estimated to cost as much as $12-billion, has the potential to become the largest potash mine in the world and is one of three major projects BHP was slated to consider for approval later this year. But comments by the global mining giant’s chief executive officer, Marius Kloppers, suggest the company could postpone such developments.
 
“You should not expect in the next six months any new major approval of projects,” Mr. Kloppers said in an interview with Caixin Media Co. “The economics of some of these projects has changed,” he said. “I think for the next two years, 18 months perhaps, we will just wait and see how things develop.”

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According to the Saskatchewan Mining Association, the province currently has more than 25 operating mines producing minerals such as potash, uranium, coal and gold. During the next two decades, mining companies in Saskatchewan will invest more than $50 billion in new projects. To ensure the continued success of the mining sector and its contribution to the economic growth of the province, the Ministry of Energy and Resources has taken several steps to encourage further investment. Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd was recently questioned about the Ministry’s endeavours.
 
Q: In last 4½ years, how has your ministry encouraged investment in Saskatchewan’s mining sector?
 
A: The ministry has been very active in promoting our rich and diverse mineral resources and encouraging investment in our mineral sector.
 
Key aspects include: the provision of high quality geoscience information; meeting regularly with companies that are active or interested in becoming active in Saskatchewan’s mineral sector; and participation in national and international conferences and mineral investment attraction missions in partnership with other government agencies such as Enterprise Saskatchewan.

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 As Saskatchewan moves forward into more of a leadership role in the mining industry, exploration is rapidly becoming an important expenditure.
 
Why is exploration such a crucial step in mining? The purpose of exploration is to locate large reserves of high-grade minerals while disturbing the environment as little as possible.
 
This is being made possible through the implementation of new technologies such as GPS surveying, down-hole seismic imaging and airborne technologies. These tools allow exploration companies to find new deposits that would probably not be found by using traditional methods. As with research and development, exploration is a field that requires strong investment levels in order to achieve long-term success.
 
According to a 2011 report by the Mining Association of Canada, without sustainable and effective exploration, Canadian mineral production will outstrip reserve additions. This would mean that smelters and refiners across the country would be forced to rely on imported raw materials, placing the domestic mining industry at risk, both competitively and strategically.

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