Premier Greg Selinger is touting ongoing mineral exploration incentives following word that Hudbay plans to close 777 mine around 2020.
“We’re always disappointed when you hear that a mine is being proposed to close,” he told The Reminder in a phone interview on Monday. “That’s why we’ve made sure we have the most generous mineral exploration incentives in Canada – among the most generous and highly ranked – so that we can continue to fund and support activity that finds new deposits, which creates new jobs and opportunities in the North, and we’ve had reasonably good success in that.”
But is it realistic to think that another mine near Flin Flon can be found in the lead-up to the anticipated 777 closure? At least two junior miners in the region are optimistic, but Hudbay itself has allocated its entire 2016 northern Manitoba exploration budget to the Snow Lake area.
Selinger said Hudbay is better positioned to speak to that question than he is, but added, “We’ll work closely with them to provide those incentives and that support.”
“We have a lot of advantages in Manitoba for mining,” the premier said. “We have a very extensive geoscience knowledge base, so we know the geology. We have a very transparent land tenure system…and we’re working very closely with indigeneous peoples to make sure that there’s the ability to work things through in a way that everybody can be supportive of it.”
Selinger said Mineral Resources Minister Dave Chomiak is in contact with Hudbay over the 777 situation.
“He keeps in very close touch with these things and informs us on an ongoing basis,” the premier said. “He’s alerted us to this possibility [of a closure]. We’d like to use any time we have now to find future opportunities.”
Selinger added that the Lalor mine near Snow Lake is up and running “and we want to make sure that we look at other opportunities as close to Flin Flon as possible.”
