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.
Mines come and mines go, but it isn't often that one opens again after closure has been announced. For certain, it rarely happens twice. However, this appears to be what is in store for the community of Snow Lake's New Britannia Mine. This week it was officially announced that the New Brit' mine will continue on for the next three years and if everything falls into place, it could possibly produce even longer. "We have finally mined past a large waste inclusion within the main orebody, which ran about 300 vertical feet in height," said New Britannia Mine's General Manager, Mike Kelly early last week. "As a result, we find that we are back into better grade ore. But there is also this new area; over and above existing ore we knew was there." Kelly says this new extension of New Brit's Dick Zone has a northwest trend, which was not seen before. "We started to get a little sniff of it in the spring," he said. "With the last couple of sills it has lengthened and the grade improved, and then with the last sill scheduled to be mined before closure, it really took off for about 400 ft. to the north and appears to continue at depth." The grade of the ore in this area has been exceptional by New Britannia standards. In fact, during the last couple of months, the mine's grade has been running 0.17 - 0.18 oz. of gold per ton of ore. That is almost double the grade that was coming out of New Brit' over the past year. As a result, the mine's 50 per cent owner and operator, Kinross Gold, has approved an exploration proposal that will see workers drive a 900 ft. exploration drift just below the mine's 3600 level. As well, Kinross have agreed to restart New Brit's main ramp and ore development in the mine's Dick Zone. Once the drift is finished, a drill will be moved in and about 15,000 ft. of diamond drilling will be done in order to firm up reserves in the new area. See 'Drilling' P.# Con't from P.# "We're confident that it's there for at least a couple of hundred vertical feet," said the open and energetic Kelly. "Which means another 50 to 100 thousand extra ounces, possibly a lot more, but we just don't know until we diamond drill." He added that drilling should wrap up by December and there will be an announcement made on the results at its conclusion. Even though the Kinross approved program calls for another three years of operation, depending on the extent of mineralization and the grades found, there could possibly be more. "In theory, if there is enough ore and the ounces are proven up, we could even look at an internal shaft," said Kelly. The company has talked about an internal shaft before. However, they have maintained that there would have to be a substantial amount of material below the 3600 level in order to justify its close to $20 million cost. "We would likely need at least three quarters of a million ounces defined in this new area, before even considering the huge capital costs of an internal shaft," Kelly explained. It has been said that good news begets good news and the fact that the mine will continue for the immediate future could possibly bring about even more ore as the result of surface exploration. "The strike length of the ore body to the east has never been looked at," said Kelly. "The beauty of this program is that it gives Kinross a multiple year window to look at surface exploration east of the shaft. Realistically, you have to crawl before you walk and I wasn't about to push for a surface exploration program at this time. Perhaps in the next phase or in next year's budget, we'll look at that." One company or another has mined Snow Lake's massive Nor-Acme gold deposit over a long and impressive span of 55 years. In that time, the community has stressed and worried through the closure announcement of two mines spawned by the deposit; the Old Britannia Mine, which announced closure and eventually did shut down in the late 1950s and the New Britannia Mine, which announced closure in November of 2003, but from all indications won't be acting upon that notice for a few years yet. These mines have been likened to a phoenix, which is a mythical bird, which periodically burns itself to death and emerges from the ashes, fresh, beautiful, and ready for another long life. This particular phoenix has risen, not once, but twice. Unfortunately, even with the exploration drift and continued development of the ramp approved, operations in the mill will cease at the end of September. As a result, the bulk of the mill's operating crews and some production related mining personal will be laid-off, with the potential to be recalled, possibly by next May. It is the company's policy that any hourly person laid off as of November 1/2003 will receive two weeks pay for every year worked and a retention bonus should their remaining time with the company be accident and AWOL free. Even though the mill will close, Kelly says there is a lot of maintenance work and other things that have to be done and there will be a small crew of people kept on at the mill for closure and through the winter period. "We will end up with a (project wide) workforce of about 90 to go through this hiatus period from October through until next summer," he said. "When full production comes about in the mine, and the mill fires up, that number will be around 140 or 150." "It will never be the 240 to 250 it was in the past when we were milling 2400 tons a day, but still, it will be significant," he added. New Brit's workforce has been apprised of the mine's new found fortune through front line supervision and Kelly will bring them further up to date at quarterly meetings slated to begin late in the week. Certainly, another three years of operation will help to quell the stress and uncertainty of the past year. However, for some of the people who have been laid off or elected to leave, the news will surely prove to be frustrating. See 'Improved' P.# Con't from P.# Kelly states that Kinross are very pleased with how things have turned out locally and have always been cognizant of the effect closure would have on the town and people's lives. "It's nice to see that the orebody has improved dramatically, such that Kinross can now justify the expenditure," said Kelly. He admits that it's not going to be a huge moneymaker for them as New Britannia is a small fraction of what Kinross is on the whole. "We represent about two per cent of the overall ounces in their yearly production rate," he said. "We are a high cost per ounce producer due to our low grade, but that is cost per ounce. Our productivity is among the highest in the industry and our cost per ton among the lowest." One can see that New Brit' doesn't add much to Kinross in terms of their cost per ounce. The company could have walked away from the mine and found the two per cent it brings to them elsewhere. But they didn't, and that undoubtedly says something for the mine's workforce and the community of Snow Lake. By the end of October the workforce will be mining ore, but for the time being it will be stockpiled on surface. It will likely be June before they can fire the mill up on an ongoing basis and feed it 1500 tons a day. Until then, 90 or so workers will continue on with readying the mine and mill for the next three years. And the town will hope that this latest incarnation of the Nor-Acme phoenix finds strong wings and soars like an eagle.
