The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
A mishap at the Lalor mine could mean a brief closure for the Snow Lake mill and some lost revenue for Hudbay. The company reports that last Friday, Sept. 27, an industrial container hoisting ore to the surface came detached from its cable and plummeted back down the shaft. There were no injuries and, with an investigation involving a provincial mines inspector underway, it is unclear what went wrong. 'It's very unusual,' said Brad Lantz, vice-president of Hudbay's Manitoba operations,, calling it 'a fairly significant incident.' The equipment was owned and operated by Redpath Mining Contractors and Engineers, which has a contract to perform work at Lalor, located near Snow Lake. After the container _ known as a skip _ came loose and fell, all ore stopped being hoisted to the surface. 'We suspect the top of the skip is still attached to the hoist rope, and we haven't moved the hoist rope as of yet,' Lantz said Monday. The incident occurred in Lalor's ventilation shaft, which is being temporarily used as a production shaft. After the mishap, workers continued to stockpile ore underground and the Snow Lake mill continued to process ore that had already been stored on surface. See 'Up' on pg. Continued from pg. On Monday Lantz estimated, in rough terms, that there was enough ore on surface to keep the mill running for another 10 to 14 days. But he also estimated it would take two to four weeks to get the skip back up and running, so it's possible the Snow Lake mill will be temporarily closed. Hudbay may also lose an unknown amount of revenue, though the company was investigating an alternate method of bringing Lalor's riches to surface. Lantz said it is possible to haul the ore up the ramp system that remains from Hudbay's adjacent, now-defunct Chisel North mine. But before doing so, Hudbay has to be sure it will not jeopardize the roughly $40-million tax credit it is owed by opening a new mine in Lalor. Lantz hoped to receive clarification from Revenue Canada yesterday, after The Reminder went to press. If Revenue Canada okays the temporary use of the Chisel North ramp system, Lantz expected the overall impact from the mishap to be 'very limited.' If not, Lantz still did not expect a 'significant impact' at Lalor, which entered the early phase of production earlier this year. Not only was no one hurt in the skip mishap, Lantz said there wasn't really a potential for injuries. 'There's no man entrance to the shaft,' he said. Lantz said the skip used in the shaft hoists about eight tons of ore at a time. During the second quarter of this year, Hudbay hoisted 106,723 tonnes of ore from the ventilation shaft at Lalor. Ore production at Lalor is expected to transition from the ventilation shaft to the main production shaft by the second half of 2014, subject to regulatory approval.
