CIM Magazine September-October 2022

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30 A promising future in la belle province

While gold continues to shine, explorers are drawn to new frontiers and the potential for battery metals

By Dinah Zeldin

34 Greenstone builds on a goodneighbour philosophy

Partnerships were formed and local community buy-in was obtained before construction of the gold mine could begin

By Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

38 Planning for anything Enterprise resource planning software is finding its home in the mining industry as a flexible way to manage operations

By Lynn Greiner

22 net-zero challenge

All in on trolley assist

The technology will play a key role in helping Copper Mountain reach its ambitious goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2035

By Kelsey Rolfe

Par Dinah Zeldin soutien Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco Matthew Parizot Bjanka Korb and of mining Andrew Snook Michele Beacom

Reader engagement

Earlier this year, we reached out and asked you to tell us about yourselves and your media-consumption habits. We do this every few years to help understand who our audience is, your preferences and how we can refine the work we do to meet your needs. Our reader survey also helps equip our sales team for its communications with current and prospective advertisers.

Generally, the responses from the periodic surveys don’t change dramatically over time. However, it had been three years and a pandemic since the last time we polled our readers. Back in 2019 we didn’t even ask if webinars were part of your mining media diet. At that point, we had only begun to experiment with them ourselves. This year, nearly half of respondents said webi nars are one of their go-to sources for minerals-industry content.

So I am happy to report that, after a summer hiatus, September will see the return of the CIM Magazine Solutions Exchange webinar. We are also exploring how we might expand our webinar offerings for the future and whether this short and focused format is a winning combination to outlast the pandemic.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to complete the survey and con gratulations to the three winners of the gift cards.

1st Prize: Zoran Ivosevic

2nd Prize: David Cisyk

3rd Prize: Ernest Armitt

I was also excited, if a little roughed up, to get some unso licited feedback from a reader. Whether through surveys or let ters, your perspectives help make this a better magazine. So, I will leave the last word in this column to the letter writer:

Regarding your “Lucky strike” editor’s letter (p. 10, May 2022) and related article “Thin Edge of the Wedge” (p. 42), you call for exploration companies to actively reduce their carbon footprint. Although perhaps noble and obviously woke, I believe it is very short sighted. Specifically, your refer ence to doing it regardless of “materiality.”

Consider the magnitude of the challenge ahead of the min ing industry to provide the metals needed for the net-zero energy and transportation transition by 2050. In less than 30 years, in North America, we will have to convert some 400 mil lion vehicles to electric or other non-internal combustion engines. For EVs, each vehicle requires a ½-ton battery made of metals extracted and processed from some 250 tons of mined materials.Thatequates to 100 billion tons of mined materials. That’s just North America! Europe has a similar number of vehicles and China and India have twice as many to produce or con vert. And then we have to convert the energy sector to noncarbon fuels and connect it all to the grid – a gargantuan task.

Yes, we can cut down on the total number of future vehicles by being more efficient at transporting people and things, but they all require even more metal utilization. If we burden explo ration companies with non-material, feel-good, woke direc tives, we make exploration less efficient by spending dollars and time on things that won’t make a difference. If they make us more efficient, I’m all for it; if not, it is (at best) misguided. Exploration should spend its time and dollars being the most efficient it can be so we can find, develop and build the mines that will get us to net zero by 2050. That’s only a generation away! Let’s focus on the material things and get the job done!

–Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse, president and CEO of Contango Ore Inc.

Ryan Bergen,@Ryan_CIM_Mageditor@cim.orgEditor-in-chief

Editor-in-chief Ryan Bergen, rbergen@cim.org

Managing editor Michele Beacom, mbeacom@cim.org

Section editors Carolyn Gruske, cgruske@cim.org; Matthew Parizot, mparizot@cim.org

Editorial intern Sarah St-Pierre, sst-pierre@cim.org

Contributors Ashley Fish-Robertson, Lynn Greiner, Bjanka Korb, Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco, Rosemary Mantini, Andy Randell, Kelsey Rolfe, Peter Shepherd, Andrew Snook, Dinah Zeldin

Editorial advisory board Mohammad Babaei Khorzhoughi, Vic Pakalnis, Steve Rusk, Nathan Stubina

Translations Karen Rolland, karen.g.rolland@gmail.com

Layout and design Clò Communications Inc.,

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This issue’s cover Trolley assist at Copper Mountain.

Courtesy of Copper Mountain Mining

THE PROGRAM

LECTURERS ARE AVAILABLE FOR YOUR ONLINE OR IN-PERSON EVENTS.

The Distinguished Lecturers program is offered to 31 CIM Branches, 11 Technical Societies and 8 Student Chapters. Universities can also request a lecture.

The CIM Distinguished Lecturers program started in 1968 and has continuously provided a lineup of individuals who have shared their knowledge with the mining community for over five decades.

Every year, the lecturers are elected by their peers through the CIM Awards program and hold the title for a complete season (September to June).

CIM is privileged to count more than 260 of the industry’s finest as its lecturers. Because the motto “once a lecturer, always a lecturer” defines our pride and dedication in ensuring that the learning curve is endless, a complete list of past lecturers is available at www.cim.org, where you can benefit from the ever-growing pool of expertise that the program has to offer.

The CIM Foundation’s generous support allows the CIM Distinguished Lecturers Program to connect CIM members with leading industry expertise.

The CIM Distinguished Lecturers program is owned and operated by the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM).

ToutantMarieAnneofCourtesy

Schoeck in Born to Build, a People’s History of the Faculty of Engineering, University of Alberta. Trust and collaboration were foundational blocks that led to tremendous success at the U of A engineering faculty during Dr. Lynch’s era, including a 77 per cent increase in total undergraduate enrollment, a 341 per cent increase in graduate enrollment, $950 million raised to support special initiatives and expansions, 20 Natural Sciences and Engi neering Research Council of Canada Industrial Research chairs, and over $600 million in external sponsored research funding.

For me, however, the cornerstone of Dr. Lynch’s legacy was set at the end of his tenure as dean, and the benefit of which will endure for many years. Dr. Lynch and his wife Joan, together with many colleagues, friends and supporters, generously provided more than $6 million for the establishment of the David and Joan Lynch School of Engineering Safety and Risk Management.

This generosity enabled the full realization of a vision shared by many including long-time CIM’er Gord Winkel, threetime recipient of the CIM Distinguished Lecturer Award and the 2019 CIM National Safety Leadership Medal. In 2010, as a retired Syncrude executive having spent more than a decade as a guest lecturer in the program from which the Lynch School arose, Gord joined the faculty as an industrial professor with a vision for expanding the delivery and reach of the program. In 2016 this vision was realized with the establishment of the Lynch School, which instituted a senior-year course in risk management as a mandatory core-competency requirement for all undergraduate engineering students in every engineer ing discipline at the university.

Taking managementrisk to the next level

The Right Honourable Mary Simon, Governor General of Canada, announced appointments to the Order of Canada, one of our nation’s highest awards, on June 29, 2022. Among those honoured was David Thomas Lynch of Edmonton Alberta, who was appointed an Officer of the Order “for his contributions to the science and technology of environ mental engineering in Canada, and for his visionary leadership in engineering education.”

Dr. Lynch served four consecutive terms as dean of engineer ing at the University of Alberta, from 1994 through 2015, with his approach having taken “a different path than other deans. [He] focused on government and industry, serving on more than 30 Alberta-based, national and international advisory, management, government and corporate boards and agencies. He established trust with many people through this service,” noted Ellen

The trust-building and collaborative approach is alive and well at the Lynch School today, where a growing team of aca demic leaders engage with corporations, agencies, associations and other organizations regularly to improve risk-management effectiveness on many fronts through research, education, work shops and keynotes, leveraging the school’s industry executive board and working across many industry sectors. In 2022, the Lynch School will reach a milestone wherein 5,000 engineering students will have graduated with a fundamental grounding in safety and this number is expected to double in the next five years. The ripple effect of graduating 10,000 engineers in engi neering safety and risk management means lives saved, harm prevented, the environment protected and businesses spared from tragic loss. That is an enduring legacy indeed congratu lations to all who are involved in this work.

I can’t help but wonder what will be possible by leveraging this work through the CIM Health & Safety Society and CIM Canadian Mining Schools’ Committee. What is clear and certain is that technology, collaboration and improved risk management are key enablers for a sustainable mining future in Canada.

Anne Marie Toutant CIM President

Thorough mapping

Sandvik’s AutoMine Mapping Solution is a new product that captures 3D scans of mine areas, creating an environment with routes that can then be navigated by automated equipment. Intended to minimize production downtime, the mapping kit allows for other equipment to operate within the area while it is being mapped.

“With this 3D mapping tool, [the 3D scan] can be done in less than an hour, potentially, as far as impacting on the production area goes,” said Eddie Bilborough, business manager, automation and digitalization at Sandvik.

Detailed muckpile analysis

The BMX Fragmenter is the new post-blast fragmentation analysis software resulting from a collaboration between 3GSM GmbH and RAM. The platform converts high-resolution drone images into 3D renderings of the muckpile, colour-coding different particle sizes, all done without the need for ground reference markers – or an internet connection. “This thing is a completely autonomous standalone program that allows you to operate in the middle of nowhere and get that job done with very, very high accuracy,” said Robert McClure, president of RAM. After a 15-minute flight, a model showing the width, throw and height of the muckpile is generated and can be refined with editing tools.

Portable digital twins

Clirio, Inc. has developed a software solution for 3D field data capture, dubbed Clirio. “Once these 3D captures are made, in about 30 seconds to a minute using your AR app and your iPhone or an iPad Pro, they are then synced up to our cloud in a private workspace for you and your team,” explained Ron Klopfer, Clirio CEO. The map-based workspace allows field observations to be automatically georeferenced, letting users build a digital twin of worksites that their remote collaborators can then interact with and even visit through virtual and augmented reality tools.

Compiled by Sarah St-Pierre

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Developments

Russia’s war raises ESG questions for miners

A new report shows that companies looking to fill the critical minerals supply gap resulting from western sanctions will have to contend with unforeseen ESG risks

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a significant contributor to the chaos affecting metals markets over the past months, and as a result, it might be time for some mining companies to make some tough decisions.

Heavy sanctions have made operat ing in Russia and its ally Belarus near impossible, but demand for critical min erals needed for the green energy transi

tion – copper, nickel and cobalt, for example – is expected to grow signifi cantly over the next decade, and Russia is a major producer for several of them. According to a new report from Verisk Maplecroft, in order to try and bridge that supply gap, mining companies will be required to operate in lesser-known markets that can be prone to higher lev els of ESG risk.

The report used Verisk Maplecroft’s Industry Risk Analytics data, which measures 51 different risks across 198 different countries, but specifically focused on four that are critical to ESG in the mining industry: water pollution, biodiversity, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and land, property and housing rights. According to Will Nichols, head of climate and resilience at Verisk

By Matthew Parizot lesser the have the resources to help fill the gap left by Russia, but come with their own ESG risks.

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Maplecroft, those areas were chosen specifically for a future-facing mining industry.“With our Industry Risk Analytics data, there’s a whole host of different things we could have potentially looked at, but these ones we thought were most prevalent to the coming mining indus try,” Nichols said. “But ESG can encom pass corruption, modern slavery and other aspects as well that could poten tially impinge on operators, especially if they’re unaware of the levels of these risks in these new markets.”

For instance, Russia contains seven per cent of the world’s copper reserves and provided most copper exports to the European Union in 2020. Without that supply, operators might instead look towards countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and Indone sia, which are characterized by the report as having high environmental and social risks compounded by high levels of corruption. As such, to avoid possible ESG risks, it is imperative that compa nies are aware of these risks ahead of time and try to address them.

“It’s difficult to find any major mining company that doesn’t have a code of con duct, and obviously they have investors holding their feet to the fire as well,” Nichols said. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t see ESG issues happen.”

It might be tempting for some compa nies to put ESG considerations to the side as they establish themselves in new mar kets to address the desperate need for these materials, but according to Nichols, that would be a mistake.

“I personally think that investors are taking a longer view. I think there is certainly still plenty of people who are looking quarter-to-quarter, but my expe rience with the clients that we speak to is that people are looking at ESG and sus tainability in a kind of longer-term con text,” Nichols said. “So if there is that kind of supply chain dip that is hitting profitability, if investors are convinced that a company is dealing with it in the right way and maintaining its ESG integrity, there is less of an issue. If a com pany was to throw off its ESG policies for short-term gain, I’m not sure many investors would be convinced by that.”

Unless new deposits in less risky mar kets are found, it will lead to a sort of unavoidable Catch 22 for companies look ing to take advantage of the upcoming demand. While an end to Russia’s war with Ukraine might seem to the opti mistic as a possible return to normalcy, according to Nichols, it’s unlikely that Russia will be a potential destination for American and European miners ever again. Rather, companies will instead have to quickly and carefully assess their risk profiles while building supply chains.

“It’s going to be difficult to return to Russia as a market. It’s a difficult ques tion for companies, because they’ll have supply chains built there, they’ve got all sorts of infrastructure already there, so the difficulty for them is starting anew in some of these other countries, which is what we’ve mentioned in terms of build ing up those relationships and finding out the risks in those markets,” Nichols said. “It’s ultimately a balance. Which risk are you prepared to deal with, and which are you not prepared to deal with? I think for each company, that’s going to be a slightly different calculation.” CIM

Your partner in the field and beyond

FROM THE WIRE

Compiled by Sarah St-Pierre

Vivien Janvier stepped in as Radis son’s new director of geology, bring ing with him over a decade of professional geology and research experience. Janvier has been involved with projects ranging from grassroots exploration to mature min ing Glencoreprojects.appointed

Liz Hewitt as an independent non-executive director. Hewitt has over 30 years of business experience in executive and nonexecutive positions, having previously worked in private equity.

Teck’s Don Lindsay will be retiring as president and CEO effective Septem ber 30, 2022, after 17 years at the company. Current executive vice president and CFO Jonathan Price will transition into the role of CEO fol lowing Lindsay’s departure while Harry “Red” Conger, executive vicepresident and COO, will be stepping in as president while remaining COO.

Peter Richardson is the incoming executive managing director at Nevada Gold Mines, with incumbent Greg Walker planning to retire at the end of December of this year. Richard son has a background in process engineering, project management, strategy and business development, and mining operations leadership.

Claude Schimper was appointed executive vice-president and COO of Kinross after being with the company for 10 years. Paul Tomory, former executive vice-president and CTO, has left the company as of August 31.

At Newmont, Peter Toth was announced as chief strategy and sus tainability officer. His appointment fol lows the retirement of Stephen Gottesfeld, who was with Newmont for 25 years, serving most recently as chief sustainability and external affairs officer.

Christian Milau is leaving Equinox Gold after six years, succeeded by Greg Smith as CEO and director. Smith was previously president of the company since 2017, when Equi nox was founded, and has a back ground as a chartered professional accountant.

Using geophysical data to “see through” glaciers

The University of British Columbia Mineral Deposit Research Unit (MDRU) has devised a new project that makes use of Geoscience BC’s existing geophysical data to help identify new critical miner als deposits in British Columbia’s north central region.

The area targeted by the project includes a portion of the Quesnel terrane situated between Williams Lake and Mackenzie. The Quesnel terrane, a deposit belt that spans the length of B.C. and is best known for porphyry coppergold with silver and/or molybdenum deposits, is host to a number of known mines, including Centerra Gold’s Mount Milligan, Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley and Taseko’s Gibraltar.

In the area of interest for the project, however, the terrane is largely buried under thick sediments left behind by gla ciers. This has made mapping and sam pling the bedrock at its surface hard to achieve. Using existing data, the MDRU is aiming to “look” past the sand and gravel, into the bedrock.

As the province strives to discover new deposits of critical minerals, the project will provide updated geological interpretations for the central Quesnel terrane. The new models will help facili tate the identification of settings that may be more likely to host economic min eralization for geologists and explorers.

The data used by the project was first compiled by Geoscience BC’s QUEST project in 2007, which conducted geo

chemical and geophysical surveys on the Quesnel terrane in that area. The MDRU will use the electromagnetic and gravity data from the surveys to help define the nature of the bedrock and differentiate between volcanic domains. It will also aim to find potential host mineralized zones by identifying intrusive structures andAccordingbodies.

to Geoscience BC, the data targeted by the project have been under used in interpreting the area’s bedrock that is covered by glacial till but shows promise with the MDRU’s methods.

“This project will build on the data and interpretations developed in a number of previous Geoscience BC-supported proj ects, including QUEST and CICGR [Cen tral Interior Copper-Gold Research],” said Christa Pellet, Geoscience BC vicepresident, minerals, “thereby continuing to improve our understanding of an area that is considered highly prospective.”

Sarah St-Pierre

GCM Mining and Aris Gold join forces in merger deal

GCM Mining and Aris Gold announced on July 25 that the two companies will be combining into a single entity, retaining the name Aris Gold Corporation. Once the transaction goes through, the new company will become one of the largest gold companies in Colombia, while also retaining assets in Guyana and Canada.

GCM already holds an approximate 44.3 per cent of Aris Gold shares and will acquire the outstanding shares at a ratio

The Quesnel terrane, a part of which is included in the project, is home to numerous mines, including Centerra Gold’s Mount Milligan mine (pictured).

of half a common share of GCM for one common share of Aris Gold. Upon the transaction’s completion, GCM share holders are expected to own roughly 74 per cent of the group, while Aris Gold’s shareholders will own the remaining 26 perCombinedcent. cash and committed fund ing for the joint Aris Gold figures at US$657 million, complemented by cash flow generation from GCM’s Segovia operations in Colombia, which produced 206,389 ounces of gold in 2021. An esti mated US$10 million is expected in yearly general and administrative costs savings from eliminating redundant expenses through the merger.

Ian Telfer, Aris Gold chair, will serve as the merged company’s chair of the board, and Aris Gold CEO Neil Woodyer will be the new entity’s CEO and director. GCM’s Lombardo Paredes and Mike Davies, respectively CEO and CFO, will retire from their roles at the company.

“We are building a gold mining busi ness with scale, cash flow, a strong finan cial position with US$397 million of cash and US$260 million of additional com

mited funding, and a high-quality growth pipeline,” Woodyer said.

While the main source of revenue at the time of the transaction will be the Segovia operations, the joint portfolio will also include Aris Gold’s Marmato mine, also located in Colombia, which is

currently undergoing modernization and expansion efforts. Two advanced-stage open-pit projects, GCM’s Toroparu in Guyana and Aris Gold’s Juby project in Ontario, also figure among the combined assets, along with Aris Gold’s Soto Norte feasibility-stage project in Colombia.

GCM’s Segovia operation produced over 200,000 ounces of gold in 2021.

For the merger to be realized, approval by Aris Gold and GCM share holders is still necessary. That is antici pated to happen in mid-September of this year at the respective shareholders’ meetings of the two companies. Govern

mental and regulatory go-aheads will also be “Therequired.combined group creates a topin-class company with multiple tier one assets,” said Telfer. “After Aris Gold became operator of the Soto Norte joint

venture, joining forces with GCM became a logical next step. Our increased scale will also broaden our future opportuni ties to continue building a [greater than one-million-ounce] producer over the next few years.” Sarah St-Pierre

Baffinland issues termination notices at Mary River mine

By Sarah St-Pierre

On July 31, Baffinland sent termina tion notices to over 1,100 employees at its Mary River iron mine in Nunavut, preparing to shut down its operations for the remainder of the year if it fails to receive governmental re-approval to maintain its annual limit of ore extrac tion and shipment of six million tonnes.

Since 2018, Baffinland has shipped this amount of iron ore, receiving renewed permissions for one year in 2019 and for two years in 2020 from the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB) to exceed the originally permitted limit of 4.2 million tonnes. This year’s applica tion for renewal with revisions was com pleted on May 30, shortly after the NIRB advised that Baffinland’s plan to expand Mary River, which involves raising out put to 12 million tonnes per year, among a number of measures, should be rejected.

In its initial renewal request from May 20, the company stated it did not file the request earlier because it expected its expansion plans to be approved in time to make the request unnecessary. Currently, the decision on the expansion project from Dan Vandal, the federal min ister of Northern Affairs, is expected in mid-November.

The termination notices, over 200 of which were filed for Inuit workers, will take effect on Sept. 25 and Oct. 11, when Baffinland expects it will hit its 4.2 mil lion tonne volume limit of iron ore extraction and shipments, respectively. Some employees will be kept on for care and maintenance if the shutdown goes through.TheInternational Union of Operating Engineers, Local 793, which represents over a thousand workers at the mine, is  urging the NIRB and Minister Vandal

to act to protect the workers’ jobs and consider their voices in the matter.

“The people that are making [these] decisions, their jobs are not in jeopardy. The impact is on the workers, and they seem to be the ones that are least consid ered,” said Mike Gallagher, Local 793 business manager. “It’s very frustrating to deal with constant delays and post poning deadlines. If you decide to ignore them and create a new deadline, the process that everybody has agreed to kind of lacks credibility.”

A decision on the expansion of the Mary River mine was expected by mid2021, but was  delayed due to pandemic safety measures extending the review process. In its May 2022 report on the project, the NIRB discouraged approval

of the expansion as it was proposed, cit ing adverse environmental and socioeconomic consequences. Now, after asking for an additional three months in July, Minister Vandal must decide whether to proceed with the project despite these concerns.

Soon after filing its 2022 production limit request, Baffinland also submitted a request for an emergency order to Min ister Vandal, stressing there would be layoffs if the NIRB failed to approve the request. Minister Vandal requested the NIRB complete its review by Aug. 26.

“For a number of reasons, the regu latory process is moving slowly. As a result, Baffinland must continue to take preparatory steps to rescale its opera tion in the event that it is not successful

Baffinland submitted a request for an emergency approval for its production increase in May, warning of potential terminations if it was not granted in time.

Operations at Mary River will be suspended starting in September if it does not receive approval to raise its production limit to six million tonnes for 2022

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in renewing its permit,” said Peter Akman, head of stake holder relations & communications at Baffinland. “It is our hope that the expedited NIRB process… will result in a positive response to our renewal application that can prevent employee termination.”

A letter from Alan Cormack, mayor of Clyde River, to the executive director of the NIRB, criticized the NIRB and Baffin land for its handling of the timeline following the news of the potential

“Thereterminations.wasonly14 working days between NIRB’s formal announcement of the process and the deadline for written com ments. It is well known that Nunavut’s municipalities and hunters and trappers organizations lack the staff to review the documents associated with NIRB processes, and often depend on consultants on an ‘as-needed’ basis to facilitate our participa tion,” wrote DocumentsCormack.obtained from  NIRB’s registry show that, earlier in the renewal proceedings, the Qikiqtani Inuit Association and the Ikajutit Arctic Bay Hunters and Trappers Association both formally requested more time to review the material from the NIRB, also citing lack of time and resources to comply with the tight deadlines. However, according to Akman, there were valid reasons why the proposal was submitted when it was.

“The expiry date of the Production Increase Proposal was intended by the Minister and NIRB to fall after the completion of the Phase 2 Proposal regulatory process,” said Akman. “Our decision to wait was based on our concern around ‘project split ting’ and at the time we would have needed to make a decision moving into the new year [when] the decision on Phase 2 was imminent, unlike previous years.” CIM

Umicore invests $1.5 billion in Ontario EV battery materials plant

On July 13, Umicore revealed that it will be investing $1.5 bil lion in an electric vehicle (EV) battery materials manufacturing plant in Loyalist Township in eastern Ontario, further bolstering the province’s bid on developing a vertically integrated EV sup ply chain. The Belgian multinational’s plant will manufacture cathode active materials and precursor cathode active materials.

Cathodes make up roughly half of the value of EV batteries, containing critical minerals such as nickel, cobalt, manganese and lithium. At full production, the plant is expected to produce enough cathode materials to provide batteries for one million vehicles per year. According to current estimates, this would mean contributing to nearly 20 per cent of North American EV production by the end of the decade.

“This giga factory will be the first of its kind in North Amer ica, because it’s going the full way,” said Umicore CEO Mathias Miedreich. “It’s not only doing the end product, which is the cathode material. It’s integrated, as we say, from mine to bat tery, including all the upscale steps.” Umicore is considering not only refining but also recycling activities for the plant down the road to close the supply chain loop.

The plant will be running on renewable energy from the start, which was one of the criteria the company was looking for in selecting a location along with the availability of resources and talent. “Investments recently in greener steel, in a grid that is already over 80 per cent renewable for energy and electricity: these are things that are drawing [attention] and comparing

very favourably to other jurisdictions around the world,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the press conference, commenting on the government’s efforts in attracting such investments.

Construction for the 350-acre plant is targeted to begin in 2023, with opera tions projected to kick off by the end of 2025. The new plant will further connect the mineral sector in northern Ontario to

the EV manufacturing capacity in the south. Ontario Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade Vic Fedeli travelled to Belgium in late July to link Umicore with key local, regional and provincial suppliers.

Minister Fedeli anticipates that min eral production in the province will need further support to meet the ever-grow ing critical minerals demand from the EV

Letting microbes do the work

By Sarah St-Pierre

In her new book, Mine Wastes and Water, Ecological Engineering and Metals Extraction, Margarete Kalin, president of Boojum Research, presses the mining industry to consider a paradigm shift when it comes to handling mining waste.

While ecological processes have been mostly ignored by the industry, she believes they hold the key to meeting envi ronmental sustainability objectives. In this book, Kalin and co-editor Dr. William N.Wheeler, research biologist at Boojum, have put forward sustainable means to retaining and reducing the harm potential of acid and alkaline mining waste.

Water is integral to most mining oper ations, used for dust control, drilling, transportation of solids, furnace cooling, refining and more. While mining is less water-intensive than other industries such as agriculture and manufacturing, its reliance on freshwater and its ensuing contamination of groundwater and sur face water are a source of concern for environmental sustainability. When bearing in mind global concerns around water scarcity, the importance of access to clean water is highlighted – as is the value of more efficient wastewater treat ment, which, if done right, could allow water

Therecycling.bookidentifies another looming challenge for mining: land use. Arable land is already being lost at a rapid pace, while tailings ponds and waste rock piles are bound to take up yet more space as the industry contributes to decarbonization efforts. However, that trend is on a colli sion course with the needs of the agricul tural industry, which will need both land and water to sustain a growing global

population. A mine’s effect on land is not restricted to the grounds it is set up on as it also can lead to dust storms, silt streams and contaminated water, creating a broader area of land ill-suited for farming. That is why Kalin and her collaborators are asking the industry to reconsider how it approaches water and land use. With the help of ecological engineering, new means of approaching waste from the exploration stage onward could allow mining to meet the challenge head on.

“When you see how big those pits are in the world, and the waste piles, it’s mind boggling,” said Kalin. “Sometimes I felt I was driving through a little Switzer land. Waste rock piles are huge.”

Kalin’s life’s work is that of implement ing ecological engineering processes to counter the negative effects that mining waste generates on the environment, and she is no stranger to fieldwork. Torontobased Boojum Research was founded in the late 1980s with her at the helm, devel oping its self-sustaining microbial waste decommissioning and remediation tools ever since. She has since received the Noranda Land Reclamation Award for outstanding achievement in the field of land reclamation, awarded by the Cana dian Land Reclamation Association, and was a CIM Distinguished Lecturer in 2004-2005. Kalin has also received an honorary PhD from Laurentian University for her work in the field.

Co-authoring the book are Dr. Bryn Harris and industry veteran Michael P. Sudbury. Harris has longstanding experi ence when it comes to extractive metal lurgy, and is a past chair of the Hydrometallurgy section of MetSoc of

sector, including Umicore’s. “None of this is going to happen overnight. We need to develop our critical minerals,” he said.

“There’s a lot of work to do. That’s why we’ve developed our critical minerals strategy and why we’re meeting with mining companies, producers, everybody that we can. Because we all understand just how important this is.”

Sarah St-Pierre

CIM as well as a recipient of the CIM Sherritt Award for Hydrometallurgy. He has authored or co-authored over 80 technical publications. Sudbury worked at Falconbridge for 44 years before run ning a consulting service focusing on metallurgical and environmental chal lenges. He has authored or co-authored some 20 technical papers and received in 2014 the CIM Syncrude Award for Excel lence in Sustainable Development.

If left alone, pyritic mining waste will generate acidic drainage in perpetuity. The book, after contextualizing waste management, highlights three ecologi cal engineering tools: acid reduction using microbiology (ARUM), biological polishing and growing oxygen consum ing biofilms, all three of which involve

Based on 40 years of field research, a new book explains how ecological engineering can help remediate mining waste sustainably

microbes to restore the balance between oxidation and reduction in the extreme ecosystems found in mining waste.

ARUM relies on phytoplankton and root extracts below floating islands of reeds or cattails to feed organics to anaer obic microbes in the sediments. This, in turn, precipitates the metals due to the concurrent pH level increase in the water where it meets the sediment. Biological polishing, promoted through underwater plant meadows rooted in the sediment, consumes the oxygen above the sedi ment. This stops the metals from recy cling during seasonal water turnover and from re-oxidizing into the water body, keeping them stable in a layer of sedi ment at the bottom of the water.

When drainage gets too acidic to sus tain these solutions, biofilm becomes an alternative. Microbes, in a very thin biofilm, attach to the mineral surface, providing a rate of oxidation one million times higher than that of the waste. Therefore, as the rain carries both oxy gen and substances that feed the microbes to the mineral surface, the biofilm consumes it all, slowing or halt

ing the waste’s oxidation and therefore its generation of acidic drainage.

“There are biofilms which are thou sands of years old,” said Kalin. “So it’s not a reversible thing if you do it right.”

While the book backs up Boojum’s research into these tools, it also offers insights into how more efficient metal extraction practices would combine well

Costs grow at Côté Gold

Iamgold released its 2022 technical report for its Côté Gold project in Ontario on Aug. 3, updating its economics and lifeof-mine plan. The project is now expected to be more expensive and to begin produc tion in early 2024, as opposed to the previ ously forecasted late 2023, with an 18-year mine life. Côté Gold is a joint ven ture between Iamgold and Sumitomo Metal Mining, with Iamgold controlling a 70 per cent stake.

A project review and risk analysis were undertaken earlier this year to update Côté Gold’s costs, schedule, exe cution strategy and risk assessment.

with ecological engineering and stresses the need for a sustainable shift in mineral extraction practices that promotes envi ronmental stewardship.

“It’s a big piece, but it’s not written for scientists. It’s written for mining peo ple,” stressed Kalin. “It’s all preventable, the damages… but you have to under stand nature in order to control it.” CIM

Estimated remaining project costs are now US$1.9 billion, with a little over US$1.3 billion attributable to Iamgold. The remaining costs to completion were estimated at around US$710 million to US$760 million at the start of the year, and previously increased to between US$1.2 and US$1.3 billion in early May.

Côté Gold’s after-tax net present value at a five per cent discount rate now fig ures at US$1.1 billion on a 100 per cent basis, with an internal rate of return of 13.5 per cent at a gold price of US$1,700 until 2025 and US$1,600 for following years. The numbers have gone down since the previous expectations from the 2021 technical report, where after-tax net

present value stood at US$1.6 billion with an internal rate of return of 19 per cent.

Côté Gold is now expected to produce 495,000 ounces of gold annually through its first six years of production and then 365,000 ounces over the remaining life of mine. Previous forecasting placed the annual average production at 489,000 ounces for the first five years and 367,000 ounces for the life of mine. All-in sustaining costs are predicted to ring in at US$854 per ounce of gold sold.

Mineral resource estimates were left unchanged by the new report, with meas ured and indicated resources at the Côté Gold deposit figuring at 365.5 million tonnes containing 10.2 million ounces of gold grading at 0.87 grams per tonne.

While its costs have increased, according to Maryse Bélanger, Iamgold chair of the board and interim president and CEO, this is partly due to events beyond the company’s control.

“The project today is over 57 [per cent] complete and the updated project costs and schedule gives us greatly improved visibility towards comple tion,” Bélanger said. “Côté Gold is a proj ect that is being advanced in an environment with significant head winds, including COVID-19, inflation and other global events – and their impacts on global supply chains, labour availability and the associated costs of doingBélangerbusiness.”also noted the project’s potential for future expansion, starting with the adjacent Gosselin deposit.

According to her, Côté Gold’s construc tion is critical to the company’s aims.

“Given the importance of Côté Gold to achieve our goal of becoming a leading high-margin gold producer, we are actively pursuing various alternatives to increase liquidity to complete construc tion and deliver Côté on the updated schedule,” Bélanger said. “We expect to address these near-term challenges to advance Côté and better position [Iamgold] as a more resilient, agile com pany for the current environment.”

Sarah St-Pierre

Giga Metals and Mitsubishi agree to new joint venture

On August 15, Martin Vydra, president of Giga Metals Corporation, announced that the Vancouver-based company would enter into a binding agreement with Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation. The intent of this partnership is to form a new joint venture company, which will be known as the Hard Creek Nickel Corpora tion. The joint corporation will develop the Turnagain nickel deposit located in northern British Columbia.

“We are excited about partnering with [Mitsubishi] due to their excellent reputa tion, expertise in mining, extensive financing capabilities, experience in mar keting, and the values that they share with Giga regarding environmental, social and governance issues,” said Vydra.

The joint partnership will result in Mitsubishi acquiring a 15 per cent equity interest in Hard Creek in exchange for cash consideration of $8 million. Giga Metals will maintain an 85 per cent equity interest in Hard Creek in exchange for their contribution of all related assets for the Turnagain project.

Giga Metals’ May 2021 resource state ment places measured and indicated resources for the Turnagain project at 5.2 billion pounds of nickel and 312 million pounds of cobalt from 1.07 billion tonnes grading at 0.22 per cent nickel and 0.013 per cent cobalt.

Due to the low carbon nature of devel oping the Turnagain nickel deposit, the two companies foresee this project to be one of the most eco-friendly nickel proj ects in the world and stated that the new joint venture will explore the viability of using tailings to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere to achieve carbon neutrality.

Iamgold’s Côté Gold project, shown here in April 2022, has a net present value of $US1.1 billion at a five per cent discount rate.

The new joint-venture, Hard Creek Nickel, will focus on developing the Turnagain nickel deposit in B.C.

Additionally, Hard Creek aims to work in conjunction with local communities and First Nations residents to pursue the Turnagain project in a sustainable man ner, one that will benefit all stakeholders in B.C.Apre-feasibility study for the project is expected to be completed within the first half of 2023. Ashley Fish-Robertson

Forging the pathway to net zero

For the Conference of Metallurgists 2022, the first to be held in-person since the COVID pandemic, the Metallurgy and Materials Society of CIM – or MetSoc –focused the event’s content on a theme critical to the future of metallurgy: the “Pathway to Net Zero.”

Held in Montreal’s Bonaventure Hotel from Aug. 21 to 24, the conference fea tured numerous technical sessions, workshops and social events, all focusing on Canada’s and the metallurgical com munity’s ability to affect the quest to lower emissions and reach the net-zero target by 2050. This theme extended to the conference’s keynote and plenary speeches as Monday’swell.opening keynote was given by Andrew Ghattas, director of Natural Resource Canada’s (NRCan) Critical Min erals Centre of Excellence. In his talk, he outlined the government’s role in strengthening the supply chains of the 31 critical minerals outlined in the strategy released by the federal government this year. According to Ghattas, the landscape has shifted to the point where these min erals represent a “generational opportu nity” and that developing these value chains will protect Canada from future risk as “Fullywell.recognizing that the push into greener technology requires looking at value chains in their entirety,... it’s really the mining and the processing end of the chain where the bottlenecks will create the greatest pressure on our ambitions of ramping up overall manufacturing. Current mineral supply and investment plans fall short of what’s needed to trans form the sector, and to meet demand forecasts, so this is an area where we need to encourage more overall activity,” he said. “The other aspect of this is that the production of these minerals is more geographically concentrated than oil or natural gas, which makes supply

extremely vulnerable to geopolitical, eco nomic and other risks. There are a variety of factors at play in critical minerals, but in short we have become highly reliant on other countries for almost all aspects of entire value chains.”

The afternoon’s plenary session included a mix of speakers from govern ment, industry and academia. Hosted by NRCan senior policy analyst Nadim Kara, the panel included Marie-Pierre Ipper siel, president and CEO of PRIMA Que bec; Ann Masse, global head of health, safety, environment and security at Rio Tinto; Hani Henein, professor in the department of chemicals & materials engineering at the University of Alberta; Martin Tyrawskyj, acting program direc tor of Materials for Clean Fuels Challenge Program, National Research Council Canada; and Marie-Pierre Paquin, chief advisor, office of the chief scientist at Rio Tinto. During the panel, the speakers dis cussed what they believe the metallurgy community needs to meet the challenges of the“Netmoment.zerochanged everything, [and] I think we have to change our mindset. We used to be, in the last 30 years, in an emissions reduction paradigm. Now, because of the goals and emissions tar gets, we have to think and work more in an emissions elimination paradigm,” said Ippersiel. “Every part of the econ omy has to contribute to the future, and I invite the metallurgy community, as much as the materials science commu nity, to play a role and propose solutions. I think you have something to bring to this journey.”

“If you’re focusing on 2050, and we all know the timeline it takes from invention in the lab to testing a proto type to going to a pilot plant to full pro duction, it takes a long time in our profession. 2050 is not that far away,” said Henein. “In Canada we have a fund ing scheme that partners very well aca demics to governments to industry. We’ve done very well over the years with these kinds of programs. However, to reach 2050, we are going to need to collaborate far more than we’ve ever done before in a far greater accelerated period of time, and we’re going to need far greater investments.”

The next day featured a talk from widely influential metallurgist and Canadian Mining Hall of Fame inductee Phillip Mackey to discuss some of the technology being developed to help the transition to green energy. The after noon also featured a “Big Ideas Ses sion,” where nine representatives were given the opportunity to present their technological innovations and the opportunities each represents to reduce emissions. According to Mackey, how ever, these technologies will require more

“Canadasupport.has sources of critical metals and can build on this for the export mar ket and, as we heard yesterday, the Cana dian critical minerals strategy identified 31 minerals and six top ones, but it won’t happen without more R&D. We need it from the large mining companies, who, notably, are not very active in R&D, pub lic universities and government sup port,” he said. Matthew Parizot

From left to right: Nadim Kara, Marie-Pierre Ippersiel, Hani Henein, Martin Tyrawskyj, Marie-Pierre Paquin

All in on trolley assist

The technology will play a key role in helping Copper Mountain reach its ambitious goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2035

By Kelsey Rolfe

In early April, seven massive haul trucks were suddenly zip ping up a steep one-kilometre haul ramp of Copper Mountain Mining’s flagship open-pit mine at twice the speed – and a mere fraction of the diesel usage.

It’s the result of the new trolley assist infrastructure at the southern British Columbia copper mine. A trolley assist system enables electric-motor haul trucks to bypass their diesel gener ators and receive clean power directly from the overhead power line. While going up the ramp, the truck’s engine is idle – still technically running, but not consuming nearly the same amount of fuel. Copper Mountain worked with ABB on the power infrastructure, with SMS Equipment and Komatsu on the haul trucks, and received some funding for the project from Clean BC and B.C. Hydro.

The trolley assist system will play a key role in helping Cop per Mountain reach its ambitious goal of net-zero carbon emis sions by 2035. Gil Clausen, Copper Mountain’s president and chief executive officer, said he and chief operating officer Don Strickland quickly pinpointed the site’s diesel-generated haul trucks as its largest source of emissions.

“We started putting together this [emissions reduction] plan and trolley assist became a big part of it,” Clausen said. “How do we lay the groundwork for the future? We have to take away the highest energy-consumptive part now, which is haulage uphill.”

Only a few months in, the pilot phase has already been a major success. According to Clausen, the pantograph-equipped haul trucks climb the mine’s toughest haul ramp at more than twice the speed of the company’s regular trucks, and at one-twelfth the diesel cost. The company also completed a study that estimates it is cutting 79 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per truck

cycle on the installed trolley section, and it expects trolley assist will help it slash its overall emissions by at least 30 per cent.

The project represents a major milestone for the industry: Copper Mountain is the first open-pit mine in North America to install trolley assist, though the technology has been available for decades. Clausen said he thinks it may also mark a turning point as mining companies seek to rapidly decarbonize to reach net-zero emissions.

“I think there’s a real opportunity here for this technology to become much more pervasive in our industry,” he said. “So we’re trying to stay one step ahead of the game. We’re assuming the trol ley assist will be a successful test, we have a strong sense that it will, and we’re working on the next phase of evolution of haulage here that’s going to get these large haul trucks to carbon zero.”

Powering ahead

Copper Mountain first started discussions about implement ing trolley assist in 2019, and launched a feasibility study looking at what electrical infrastructure would be necessary, how to out fit the trucks and the quality of mine haul road necessary for a successful implementation. By late 2020, the study showed “positive results” and the company and its partners decided to power ahead, said George Shehata, project development for process industries at ABB.

The company is starting with seven trucks, outfitted with pantographs that connect to the trolley assist infrastructure, with plans to eventually expand the number of trucks capable of using the system. Shehata noted Copper Mountain had a built-in advantage: it already owned haul trucks with electric drive motors, which require less modification than introduc

In a studied section, haul trucks connected to the trolley assist system reduced their carbon dioxide equivalent per truck cycle by 79 kilograms.

net-zero challenge

ing a trolley assist system with only traditional diesel-pow ered

Thetrucks.trial

is taking place on the haul ramp that will see the majority of Copper Mountain’s ore transport for the next 10 to 15 years, making it a logical choice, Clausen said. He also noted the ramp is the mine’s toughest duty cycle, at a 10 per cent incline, and one of the most energy-intensive stretches of road on site. While the trolley assist saw less action in the summer months as Copper Mountain developed some of the open pit’s upper benches, Clausen said the company is heading into a period of heavy testing this fall.

Within the first few months, the company “knocked some of the bugs out,” Clausen said. The truck’s pantographs are exposed to the risk of falling rock from the loading operations above, caus ing a potential maintenance issue, and needed to be made more robust. With the modifications, he said, the company has been able to maintain high availability of the trolley-assisted trucks.

Clausen noted it has also been crucial to keep the haul road smooth and level so the pantographs stay properly connected to the overhead wires.

A slow climb

Trolley-assist technology has long been available. During the 1970s energy crisis, when the Yom-Kippur War in 1973 and the 1979 Iranian Revolution disrupted oil supplies, creating short ages and price spikes for western countries that relied on energy exports from the Middle East, numerous mining companies commissioned studies on trolley assist as they sought to reduce their diesel reliance.

Even though trolley assist is a win-win, speeding up cycle times and improving productivity while slashing emissions, the technology never quite took off. To date, according to ABB, there have been some installations at African mines. Eldorado Gold partnered with Hitachi Construction Machinery in 2012 to install trolley assist at its Kışladağ mine in Turkey.

Most recently, in 2018 Swedish miner Boliden worked with ABB to introduce trolley assist infrastructure at its Aitik copper mine in northern Sweden to power four mine trucks over a 700-metre stretch of haul road, which saved the mine 830,000 litres of diesel per year. The company spent US$31.2 million in 2020 and 2021 to install an extra three kilometres of trolley line and convert 10 additional trucks at Aitik, as well as to install 1.8 kilometres of road and convert 13 trucks at its Kevitsa nickel mine in Lapland, Finland. Boliden has said trolley assist can cut its transportation-related GHG emissions by 80 per cent along the routes where the technol ogy is Sachinimplemented.Jari,general manager of mining North America at ABB, said there are numerous reasons why trolley assist hasn’t reached widespread adoption. After the energy crisis, the cost of diesel has been historically lower than it is today, and until recently there was no urgency within the industry to reduce the environmental footprint of mining. He noted that electric drive train technologies for haul trucks and power technology have also evolved significantly in the past decades.

Jari said ABB conducted its first study of trolley assist with a copper mining company roughly five years ago, and at the time, the business case didn’t make sense. “With today’s condi tions, it makes business sense, as well as sense on the human side,” he said.

Since Copper Mountain commissioned the system in April, Clausen said his team has been giving tours regularly to other companies that want to understand how the system works. Jari and Shehata also said ABB has seen an influx of inquiries.

There are a few key elements that need to be in place for trol ley assist to be a viable option with a reasonable payback period, Shehata said, with the longevity of the haul roads being among the most important. If a mine plan builds in regular changes to the haul road, it becomes harder to justify installing the trolleyassist infrastructure. The stretch of road where trolley assist is installed also needs to be a decently steep incline, he said, to result in meaningful fuel cost and usage savings. The mine also needs to have an available clean power source at a reasonable cost; operations that are drawing on on-site diesel generated electric power won’t make much of a dent in their GHG emissions by switching from one carbon-emitting power source to another.

At Boliden’s Aitik and Copper Mountain, environmental con ditions were a factor in designing the electrical infrastructure, Shehata said. The pantographs and overhead electrical work had to be built to withstand the cold winters in both Sweden and B.C.

Getting ambitious

Copper Mountain hasn’t technically finished its pilot period yet, but Clausen is already looking to the future. He said the com pany hopes to move to the “next phase” of the technology by purchasing battery-electric haul trucks once those are available and using the trolley infrastructure to charge them.

One of the sticking points around battery-electric haul trucks for open pits has been the size of battery needed to power a large machine for the long duty cycles required, Clausen noted. “It’s hard to get a battery size that’s efficient enough to run a full pro duction shift and recharge between shifts,” he said. Trolley assist could close that gap, allowing a smaller battery to be con tinuously used by charging it during the duty cycle.

The company has also been evaluating trolley, truck and con veyor options – the latter of which would be all-electric – for its New Ingerbelle deposit, which Clausen said will be announced in the updated feasibility study and new life-of-mine plan released in the third quarter of this year. New Ingerbelle, which will eventually supplant Copper Mountain, is located roughly one kilometre away.

Clausen said going all in on trolley assist was due to the sense of “urgency” the company feels about meeting net-zero goals. Copper Mountain wants to work with others and share what it is learning to get the industry to move more quickly towards decarbonization, he added.

“Everyone has concepts of getting to carbon neutral by 2050, but there’s a much greater sense of urgency that we have to have. We can’t afford to miss these goals, there’s too much at stake not to be successful,” he said. “We’ve got to take action, and the only way to do that is tangible plans and putting the energy and resources behind them. If you don’t do that, you’re selling everybody else short.” CIM

Net-Zero Challenge will run throughout 2022. It will examine the challenges involved with reducing greenhouse gases and eliminating carbon footprints, and it will also look at the opportunities those actions can represent. If you have something to contribute, reach out to us at editor@cim.org

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Cascading benefits

By Bjanka Korb and Peter Shepherd

The mining sector’s drive towards ambitious water conservation targets means recycling more – so that less fresh water needs to be procured. There is also a financial benefit to recycling, as having to treat water before use or discharge is an expensive exercise. That treatment can be kept to a minimum if mines are clear about what level of water cleanliness is required by its different on-mine processes.

Clearly, a mine does not want to be using potable water to mix with tailings for pumping to a tailings storage facility. Most of a mine’s water will generally be used in the process plant, and these applications can usually manage with much lower water qualities.Thatsaid, there would be specific phases of the plant that require cleaner water – for the mixing of reagents and chemi cals, for instance. There is also a need for water that is low in sediment particles for use in the gland seals of pumps.

Mines can optimize the reuse and recycling of their water through developing a water quality “cascade.” A cascade will detail the minimum water quality demanded by each process, so that water is not treated to higher levels of quality that are needed at the point of use.

This approach opens the door to increasing the volumes that can be reused and recycled. The accumulation of water in the system and resultant discharge of low-quality water into the environment is thereby also minimized.

An additional benefit is that the mine would be able to reduce its reliance on treated municipal water and would, therefore, decrease the mine’s operational cost. Where untreated dam water can be procured from a municipal source, the mine could use this directly in the plant – and only treat water to potable standards for use in bathrooms, kitchens and for Withdrinking.more extensive reuse of water, however, the water quality within the mine system can deteriorate to the point where regular intervention is required. This is a consequence that must be carefully managed. Fortunately, most regions have seasonal rainfall, which assists with keeping the water quality cleaner, but regardless of this, a concentration of salts will occur over time. The reality is that mines may need to consider water treatment for recycled water in the later stages of the life of theDevelopingmine.

the cascade approach needs a good understand ing of the water and salt balance within the broader system –including the mine workings, the processing circuit, the tailings dam, the fresh-water supply and the receiving watercourses.

By identifying the major drivers of water use, a mine can bet ter target its recycling efforts. For instance, if the water being returned from the tailings dam is sediment-laden or there are other elements within the water that do not easily settle out, then it may not be usable in certain key plant processes.

Achieving the best results from a water-quality cascade relies on good communication between the management of the

mine’s process plant and its tailings facility. Plant managers, who know the water volumes and qualities required from day to day, are important players in determining whether the processwater demand can be fulfilled by return water from the tailings dam. The communication is vital as the tailings-return-water dams are often where most of the mine’s water is stored.

The process plant and tailings teams together can assist sig nificantly in managing the mine’s water balance, and in helping reduce the volumes of water being procured externally.

Leading mining companies have recently begun appointing dedicated experts to focus on water stewardship, to ensure that strategies are implemented and coordinated mine-wide to con serve water use. This is a positive step towards balancing a mine’s need for optimal recoveries in the plant, with the need to reduce water consumption from external sources. CIM

Bjanka Korb is principal environmental engineer and Peter Shepherd is partner and principal hydrologist, both at SRK Consulting.

Voting advice

Proxy advisory firms shape mining companies, affecting how they are managed and how they treat ESG issues

By Andrew Snook and Carolyn Gruske

When it comes to the world of shareholder activism and corporate governance, there are three major players. The first two are the companies and the activists. The third are the shareholder advocates, also known as proxy advi sory firms. The two largest firms in the proxy advisory sector are ISS and Glass Lewis, and their reports and recommendations can hold substantial weight.

“Between the two of them added together, it can come to about 35 per cent of your shareholder base that will be sub scribers to either ISS or Glass Lewis. If they make a recommen dation against, that can be the difference between a director getting elected at an annual general meeting or not getting elected at an annual general meeting,” explained Fred Pletcher, partner and chair of the mining group at the law firm Borden Ladner

Traditionally,Gervais.

proxy advisory firms focused on matters related to corporate governance in Canada such as executive compensation, return on investment and board independence. But more recently, the environmental and social components of ESG have come into the spotlight, and ISS and Glass Lewis now review companies’ ESG performances.

Advise and recommend

Proxy advisory firms typically serve institutional investors such as pension funds, mutual funds or commercial banks that hold shares in publicly traded companies. They analyze publicly available data and draw conclusions as to how well they think a company is being managed. Based on those conclusions, they make recommendations for actions shareholders can take – typ ically voting for or against resolutions or director nominees at annual general meetings – and those recommendations are quite faithfully followed.

According to the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, “114 institutional investors voted in lockstep align ment with either ISS or Glass Lewis in 2020.” These “robovot ing” investors collectively managed US$5 trillion in assets.

Competing currents

In April, Glass Lewis made waves across the mining industry when Bloomberg reported that the firm urged Glencore share

holders to “vote down the commodity trader’s climate progress report at an investor meeting.” The news agency said that it had seen a report from the proxy advisory company indicating “the lack of board oversight for the company’s climate program and insufficient clarity on how Glencore may interpret support for its strategy-setting process meant investors should vote against the motion.” Nearly one quarter of the shareholders followed the advice and voted against the plan.

“We’re not historically an E&S [environmental and social] ratings provider, but, in the most recent year, we have expanded our coverage of those issues to include collecting data on certain social and environmental parameters,” said Oren Lida, Glass Lewis’ UK-based lead analyst for the Canadian market. He added, however, that the company has “a long record of advising shareholders on E&S-related proposals (whether brought by management or shareholders).”

Activist investors are looking to have a “Say on Climate” (sim ilar to what the Glencore shareholders were offered) in much the same way they pushed to have a “Say on Pay.” That is where larger companies were asked to detail how they compensate their exec utives and then permit shareholders, through a non-binding vote, to approve or disapprove of the compensation structure. In 2019, the law firm Blake, Cassels & Graydon, reported that 220 compa nies, “including more than 71 per cent of companies in the TSX Composite Index and 52 of the TSX60 Index,” voluntarily pre sented shareholders with a Say on Pay advisory vote.

According to Pletcher, these ESG campaigns make up about 20 per cent of the efforts of activist investors, whereas in years past, they only accounted for roughly 10 per cent.

Elizabeth Freele, co-founder and managing partner of Sym pact Advisory, said the number of ESG-related shareholder pro posals that have been put forward year over year has been growing. Based in Vancouver, the company helps businesses develop and implement management strategies to achieve ESG performance. “This year, we saw over 500 proposals set for ward,” said SympactFreele.regularly looks at ESG proposal trends in a broad scope. Freele said these types of proposals do not normally show up first in the mining sector but, like clockwork, usually make their way to mining in subsequent years.

According to Pletcher, as activist shareholder initiatives become more popular, there will be more reliance on proxy advisories. “As the number of environmental-related share holder proposals and environmental issues arise in connec tion with proxy fights, ISS and Glass Lewis are increasingly being asked to provide their views on those ESG issues and become a flashpoint for proxy fights and shareholder activist campaigns.”Whileimproving ESG performance is still top of mind in min ing, the support from institutional investors’ for ESG activist campaigns peaked in 2021.

“Institutional investors voted 40 per cent in favour of ESG campaigns in 2021,” Pletcher said.

So far, that number has declined in 2022, partially because the heavily influential BlackRock (the world’s largest asset man ager, which does not rely on companies like ISS and Glass Lewis) was concerned about micromanagement.

“We are starting to see more conservative, especially politi cally conservative, shareholder groups that are pushing against these main ESG topics that have emerged in the last couple of seasons,” said Freele. “It’s a new trend, but it is important to note as this anti-ESG movement is something that’s happening broadly in the ESG space. So, of course, it’s also happening in the proxy voting space.”

Still, for the mining companies that are involved in efforts such as carbon-cutting exercises or improving board diversity, explaining their actions is a key to earning support from share holders of all political persuasions.

Women on boards

According to Lida, one of the factors that Glass Lewis consid ers when making its recommendations is board composition. “In the coming year, the aspiration will be 30 per cent gender diver sity across TSX-listed boards.”

That growing diversity is in line with what Charlotte May, corporate secretary of Talisker Resources, expects securities regulators will soon require. “I know that in 2021 NASDAQ adopted a diversity policy that requires companies to not only report on their board composition but will eventually mandate compliance with the policy, which includes guidelines on the number of female directors and/or underrepresented individu als including racial, ethnic, Indigenous, cultural, religious or lin guistic identity or LGBTQ, and I anticipate this will be adopted by Canadian regulators at some point.” She also expects there will eventually be regulatory requirements to disclose how a company’s practices affect climate change.

Finding the signal in the noise

A big challenge for issuers is the multiplicity of ESG-related voting requirements to consider.

“You’ve got ISS, you’ve got Glass Lewis, then you also have large investors that don’t subscribe to their services that have their own ESG policies: BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, the big Canadian pension funds,” Pletcher said.

There is also an array of sustainability indexes that mining firms must contend with.

“You can take a single company and look at four different rat ings and they will be all over the shop,” said Freele. “You can see very clearly these four entities that are all rating the same com pany, with access to the exact same publicly available data, are using completely different methodologies.”

Then there are accounting professionals and international organizations that have their own suggested requirements for disclosure.“Itisvery difficult for companies to keep all this stuff straight, and it’s a lot of work. One of the areas that we hope will emerge from the ESG industry is a more straightforward and universally accepted series of disclosure criteria,” Pletcher said. “Right now, they aren’t out there. Looking at ISS’ and Glass Lewis’ criteria is probably a good place to start, but it isn’t the be-all and end-all right now.”

Beyond being overwhelmed by the sheer number of organiza tions that rate company performance, both investors and min ing companies could be forgiven for being confused about how proxy advisor firms actually operate. Even Lida admits that their workings could have been seen as opaque in the past.

“There used to be a perception that we were kind of a black box, whispering in the ear of institutional shareholders, and that there was no way to engage with us,” said Lida. “In the past five years, we’ve done a lot of work to refute that. We’ve started talk ing to public companies much more openly about our method ologies, we’ve started having engagement calls with them, including plenty of Canadian companies.”

That effort appears to be working. Or at least Pletcher believes that ISS and Glass Lewis are “fairly transparent” in terms of what they review. Pletcher suggests that companies research what the proxy advisory firms are looking for before preparing their annual reports and then make sure that their corporate disclosures match those expectations.

At Talisker, May said that there has been little difficulty in presenting shareholders’ proposals that would earn approval of proxy advisory companies.

“You make sure that you aren’t offside. We are cognizant and mindful of the governance oversight that ISS and Glass Lewis undertake,” she said.

The view on – and from – the mining industry

As much as Glass Lewis looks at specific companies, the proxy advisory firm also has the advantage of seeing industries as a whole and of comparing them with other business seg ments, in large part because of the way it conducts its analyses.

“There’s a place for sector expertise in covering governance issues, but all of the filings relating to governance ultimately look quite similar no matter which company they come from,” saidFromLida.that perspective, he said mining is weaker than other sectors when it comes to board-level gender diversity, and per haps a bit stronger when it comes to executive compensation. “We generally are quite supportive of them on the compensation front. They have much higher-than-average support from us as a sector when they bring Say on Pay proposals.” With regard to board independence, Lida described the sector as “middle of the road,” but added that the size of the mining company is the biggest factor as to how it compares to businesses in other sec tors. Small mining companies, for example, have more in com mon with other small businesses than they do with large mining companies.Assomebody

working at a smaller mining company, May said that proxy advisory companies are helpful to the industry.

“I think that having the watchdogs, as I want to call them –ISS and Glass Lewis – is important. Companies are mindful because of them.” CIM

Shining a light on the world of coloured gems

Michael Valitutti reflects on the state of the jewellery industry

By Carolyn Gruske

Although Michael Valitutti is a graduate gemologist work ing at Nathan Hennick & Co. Ltd., that title fails to describe exactly how involved he is with every step of the jewellery business. From visiting mines, to buying parcels of exotic gems at trade shows, to developing new processes to manipulate gemstones and metal, to selling finished pieces on a company website (GemsEnVogue.com) and on television shop ping channels around the world, he takes a hands-on approach to the jewellery business. CIM Magazine dropped by his office in Toronto to talk about the jewellery industry, the effects of COVID-19 on gemstone mining and the curious shopping habits of millennial Australians.

CIM Magazine: Would you tell us a bit about the company?

Valitutti: This company has been around since 1946. It’s a family-owned company. We manufacture jewellery here. This is the original building, but it will be condos in a couple of years. We’ll be moving and getting a place locally, but because the zon ing got changed, some of the manufacturing [we do], like the heavy casting where there is burnout, we have to transfer that overseas. We’ll bring in the pieces semi-finished and finish them up. We’ll do setting, polishing, finishing, sizing, plating, things like that where there are no fumes. The casting will be in Asia or India – India, basically.

CIM: What’s your favourite mine to visit?

Valitutti: The most exciting mines are where you get to go underground. I love them all, but I’d have to say Belmont, which is an emerald mine near Itabira, Brazil, because of the scale of operation and the level of professionalism that I witnessed there. It’s schist and they first mined it open pit, then they went underground. They have safety, they have escape rooms with food and water and air. Not all gemstone mines are like that. And the equipment they have they even have machinery that will take the rough and determine the colour of the stones.

One of the most interesting mines I went to was Golconda. It is a tourmaline mine [in Brazil]. They took us to a farm, and I said, “What are we doing at a farm?” I was told, “This is who owns the mine and does the mining. In Brazil, all these mines are run by farmers and they do this as a part-time job.” When we had to go down into the mine, it is a long cylindrical [shaft] that is all cement. They strap you into a belt and lower you down. I’ve got no safety stuff [on]. There are no safety standards. The mine is just like in the movies. The earth is soft and sandy. There are crystals and quartz. Quartz is a precursor of other gemstones, and I’m pulling out garnets and tourmaline. That was very excit ing. Even on the rock formation, I could see amethyst and mor ganite. It is one thing to study it and another thing to see it. The level of dedication of these individual men – so much of what I do

Michael Valitutti displays rough (uncut and unpolished) samples of gemstones that Nathan Hennick & Co. turns into jewellery. From left to right are citrine, prasiolite, aquamarine, morganite, amber and amethyst.

and what we offer depends on these artisanal miners. They’re just local people working for themselves, and the entire exotic gem business relies on them.

CIM: Let’s talk about the business aspects of the industry. How have they changed recently, especially in light of the pandemic?

Valitutti: COVID-19 changed absolutely everything. Before COVID-19, it was a very, very fluid and dynamic business. In this business, one year builds on the other. The suppliers are actively mining stones. There is a supply chain. Everything is connected. It is like [generating] power at the generating station. You’ve got all the transformers and wires and you have the end user. COVID-19 came in and basically ripped out the power transmis sion lines. Everything seized. A lot of people in the artisanal mines, they were forced to get other lines of work. There are still people buying on shopping channels, but we [the vendors] were all operating on pre-existing inventory. The gem shows stopped. The main one is the Hong Kong gem show [Jewellery & Gem World], then there is the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. That is one reason that caused the inflation [of prices]. Mining still hasn’t picked up to pre-pandemic levels.

For example, the morganite that is available now, I’m not buy ing it anymore. They want almost five times the price. I won’t handle it anymore. Kunzite, you get what you can get. Alexan drite [is available] here and there. And that’s the problem. The supply is sporadic. Before, it was an even flow. [The pandemic] didn’t affect diamond mining. Emeralds are a big operation. Rubies from Montepuez in Mozambique, that seemed to be okay. Sapphires have been okay, but other than the precious gems, everything was hard to obtain. In my career, I’ve never had a problem getting high-grade, high-quality amethyst and citrine. The supply had always been there. Since the pandemic, [for] the super high-grade material, not only has the price gone up, I can’t get the quality anymore. They’re not mining it.

This is my prediction: It will not get better until the Hong Kong show returns. Once you have the customers and the deal ers, all that will get fed down the chain and it will eventually reach the mining. You will get more [supply], but prices won’t stabilize until the supply catches up to or surpasses demand.

CIM: I’ve heard that shipping and insurance costs also increased during the pandemic.

Valitutti: I was just at the JCK show [in Las Vegas]. I was with a supplier who had a small booth. Normally, he has a much bigger booth. He said, ‘Michael, before COVID-19, from Bangkok, Thai land, to here cost me US$3,000 for Brinks to bring my goods over here, and US$3,000 to go back. Today, it’s US$18,000 one way. Do you know what I have to charge for my goods to make up for it?’

Everybody is just trying to survive. It’s very challenging, but what has made it good for me is that we have a vault and we have pre-existing inventory. Unfortunately, we have chewed up 50 or 60 per cent of it. We are making product for The Shopping Chan nel [TSC] and once we run out of our supply, we are going to have to go back into the market and it’s crazy out there.

CIM: What new finds have you excited? And which gemstones can’t you acquire anymore?

Valitutti: The last new finds happened just before COVID-19. There was some Congo tourmaline. What we loved about it was that it came in all the colours of the rainbow. It’s untreated, and

the clarity characteristic is the best I’ve ever seen. A lot of it was found on the ground. People think it’s a pebble, but if you wash it with water, it’s tourmaline. That was an exciting find. There was excellent aquamarine coming out of Tanzania. It beats out any Santa Maria aquamarine from Itabira. The colour of it is shock ing, but that supply is waning. We really miss Sleeping Beauty turquoise. There really isn’t any available anymore. I’ve also been seeing the decline of the great Ethiopian opal. That’s because of the difficulty of mining it. Is Tanzanite going to dis appear? Eventually.

CIM: You developed a treatment for topaz. Would you explain Valitutti:it?

Topaz is normally an amber colour, although you can get into pinks. A lot of topaz that they’ll find is white and clear and has no colour. There are two ways of treating it. There is one where they use radiation and another when they use a coating. The irradiation process is what most people are familiar with, [resulting in] sky blue, Swiss blue and London blue colours. The other process is you take colourless topaz and you use chemical vapour deposition and you coat the pavilion, which is the bottom of the stone, in a plasma chamber, using different minerals like platinum. [Our treatment] uses copper. It fuses to the pavilion of the stone. Then we coat it with carborundum. Due to internal reflection, it creates the Paraíba [tourmaline] colour. It’s like a transparent, super-vivid turquoise blue.

CIM: What development or technology are you working on Valitutti:next?

I have new things planned but they have to do with our metalworking. We’re going to have a new collection with electro forming. It will give us a cleaner, bolder design, and it will be done with gemstones. A lot of electroformed jewellery isn’t done with gemstones. There is something to do with how the stone will be set that we helped develop, but I don’t want to release it yet.

CIM: Is there still a stigma to selling fine jewellery on TV? Valitutti: No. There was once, but it’s long gone. That really dis appeared in the 2000s. The stigma went back to the 1980s and ’90s. Today, there are people buying off of Amazon and Insta gram. TSC clientele is baby boomers, because we grew up with TV. Yet, I deal with the Home Shopping Network in the United States and the demographic there is a little younger than it is in Canada. The youngest demographic I have is in Australia on TVSN. I did a live studio audience show and I had female cus tomers in their 20s, and I don’t mean two or three. I would say one-third of my customers were under 30 years of age. The same product that I’m selling here to a woman who is 65, in Australia, I have women who are 28 and 30 buying the pieces. I have absolutely no idea why.

I did a seminar at the Gemological Institute of America. They said, if it weren’t for the shopping channels, we wouldn’t be mining these coloured gemstones. The shopping channels are the reason a lot of these exotic varieties are being mined. Before the shopping channels, who would have even cared about apatite? It was there, but did you even know anybody who bought it? The shopping channels shined a light on the entire coloured gemstone industry like has never happened before in history. We were given time to go on air and explain to people the beauty of coloured stones. It really developed a whole new industry. CIM

la belle province

are venturing farther afield into northern Quebec. Simultane ously, changing market demands and strong government sup port have increased interest in looking for other commodities.

According to preliminary 2021 data from the Institut Statis tiques Quebec (ISQ), 484 exploration projects (pre-development appraisal) in the province declared exploration expenditures on precious metals projects, 236 reported spending on projects involv ing ferrous and base metals, and 112 spent money looking for lithium, graphite, rare earths and other green-energy commodities.

Quebec consistently ranks high in all categories of the Fraser Institute’s annual survey of mining companies around the world. In 2021, the province took sixth place for investment attractiveness and came in fifth for policy perception.

Part of the reason for those rankings – aside from the mineral wealth in the ground – is the robust ecosystem the provincial government has in place to support the industry. Along with tax credits, there are goverment-backed entities that support explo ration from early grassroots efforts to project development. SOQUEM, for example, works on the ground to generate grass

According to Mathieu Savard, president of Osisko Mining and and chair of the board of the Quebec Mineral Exploration Asso ciation, Quebec is one of the globe’s top mining jurisdictions. “There is so much support for the junior world and companies working in Quebec,” he says. “In terms of jurisdictions, it is one of the best in the world. Period.”

Gold and more

Despite the diversity of metals and minerals explorers are after, provincial data still shows gold is the biggest driver for spending: commodity groups with the most spending on explo ration and deposit appraisals in 2021 were precious metals (72 per cent), base metals (11 per cent) and ferrous metals (12 per cent), though this gap in spending is largely attributable to big brownfield gold projects, which spend more on drilling.

According to Steven Bowles, managing partner at Nebari Hold ings, a global company specializing in natural resources debt financing and equity investment, while gold will remain dominant in terms of drilling, the proportion of base metals and other green-

energy commodities will steadily increase. “I think the trend will evolve more and more, as we become a market for battery metals, as we start pushing forward base-metal projects, and we build downstream capacity for graphite and lithium,” he explained.

Tony Brisson, president and CEO of SOQUEM, agrees that the trend in Quebec is towards diversification of exploration and mining activities.

“We try to develop a balanced portfolio with gold projects, base metals and critical strategic metals like lithium, to make sure we are ready to develop partnerships for any type of com modity,” said Brisson. SOQUEM’s portfolio of 55 projects includes gold, copper, zinc, silver, nickel, cobalt, rare earths, graphite, vanadium and lithium.

“For the last few years, we are more focused on other types of commodities like lithium and critical minerals,” he said. “We made the shift because the market and demand for commodities is changing with the decades. Thirty years ago, nobody wanted any lithium, but today it is really, really popular.”

Drilling deeper in the Abitibi

With claims covering only about six per cent of the province, there is still a lot of Quebec that is open for exploration. Even established gold mining districts, like Abitibi-Témiscamingue, remain full of potential – especially at depth.

Osisko Mining’s 12,523-hectare gold project Windfall in the Urban township in the province’s Eeyou Istchee James Bay region is one example that demonstrates the potential for big deposits in Quebec’s most storied gold mining district for those with the budget to drill deep. Windfall boasts what it claims to be Canada’s longest diamond drillhole: 3,467 metres.

“Urban Barry was considered a barren area until we [devel oped] a world-class deposit on it,” said Savard. “Now the whole area is staked.” The company is completing its drilling program – which at 1,672,702 metres, is the biggest drill program the world has seen in five years, according to Savard – and Windfall is expected to be in production by 2025.

Beyond Windfall, the region is teeming with activity, with gold development and exploration projects at all stages. Among the bigger players, BonTerra Resources, also part of the emerging Urban Barry camp, has a resource portfolio of over three million ounces of gold. On the Cadillac Break, there is O3 Mining, an Osisko spinout, with more than 65,000 hectares. O3 Mining is expected to start production on its Marban gold proj ect in 2026, and has two other projects on the go. Between Vald’Or and Rouyn-Noranda, is Radisson Mining Resources, with two gold properties in the Cadillac Mining Camp.

Then there is Maple Gold Mines, whose Douay project covers 55 kilometres of strike along the Casa Berardi Deformation Zone. “The Abitibi is like the gift that keeps on giving,” Matthew Hornor, the company’s president and CEO, said. “As you get deeper, things tend to get larger and higher grade.”

A look up north

From Chibougamau to James Bay to Nunavik, northern Que bec is full of unexplored potential.

The most developed part of the region is around Chibouga mau, which was renowned for its copper production from the 1930s to the 1960s. Today, the region is attracting juniors seeking everything from gold and copper to nickel, iron and vanadium.Muchof the gold activity is clustered on the Frotet-Evans greenstone belt, which is the same age and metamorphic grade as the Abitibi. While the Abitibi is exposed at surface, minerals in the Frotet-Evans belt are buried beneath 10 to 15 metres of glacial

“Historically,till.

the majority of exploration in Quebec has been overwhelmingly focused on rocks you can see, and the FrotetEvans belt was considered more of a base-metal belt than a gold belt,” Justin Reid, CEO of Troilus Gold Corporation, told Global Business Reports. The company is working to restart the Troilus mine, which produced two million ounces of gold and nearly 70,000 tonnes of copper from 1996 to 2010.

Just south of Troilus is Kenorland Minerals’ and Sumitomo’s Frotet project – a grassroots discovery made possible by modern techniques. “We did large-scale systematic glacial till sampling – so we just did till sampling over a huge area and we picked up virgin plume. We traced it back up the glacier and ended up where we thought the source was,” explained Kenorland’s CEO Zach Flood. The company has a 25,000-metre drilling program planned for January 2023.

South of Chibougamau, Doré Copper Mining has a large land package with 13 former copper-producing mines. The company plans to take a “hub and spoke” approach to re-develop the area: its Copper Rand mill, which is located within a 60-kilometre radius of deposits, will serve as the hub of the operation, and be fed by projects as they are brought into production.

Two of the most advanced projects in the area are Voyager Metals’ brownfield Mont Sorcier project and Blackrock Metals’ eponymous project, which will be the first in Quebec to develop vanadium, titanium and nodular iron – notable as vanadium and titanium are essential to the green economy.

As of July 2022, there are Thetitlesactive222,778mininginQuebec.locationsareshowninorange.

Although more and more companies are using software to improve targeting, Azimut is recognized as a pioneer in this space – and has been using this technology for over 15 years. “We have a proof of concept of this technology,” said Lulin. “It led to the discovery of about 500 new mineral prospects across Quebec in truly underexplored regions, genuine new discoveries.”

More recently, these include the Patwon Gold Zone on Azimut’s Elmer property, 80 targets for nickel in James Bay, and potentially world-class copper-polymetallic deposits at its Rex properties in Nunavik, which the company is developing in a strategic partnership with SOQUEM.

“We were not the first to explore the region, but we were the first to recognize that we were dealing with a new mineral province,” said Lulin. “The size of the target makes the Rex trend very unique for Quebec.”

A bright future in battery metals and rare earths

The global energy transition to a low-carbon economy is fuelling demand for lithium, graphite and rare earths. According to a 2020 World Bank report, the anticipated growth, from 2018 to 2050, is at 488 per cent for lithium, 494 per cent for graphite and 231 per cent for indium.

Exploring new frontiers

The region surrounding Newmont’s Éléonore mine in Eeyou Istchee James Bay is poised to become the province’s next gold camp. The area first opened up when André Gau mont, lured by the road access created by the construction of Hydro Quebec’s La Grande dams, famously struck gold at the Éléonore site in 2004. Since the mine began production, the area has been attracting a steady flow of juniors, hoping to make the next big discovery.

“It’s getting tougher and tougher to make gold discoveries in the Abitibi. All the ground is already staked,” said Pierre-Olivier Goulet, vice-president, corporate development at Genius Met als, whose 20,519-hectare Sakami Gold property straddles the same structural contact between the Opinaca and La Grande geological subprovinces as Éléonore. “There are more and more discoveries that are going to come out of James Bay. It’s just gettingGeniusstarted.”Metals is one of a handful of juniors that has staked claims in the area. Their neighbours include Harfang Explo ration’s Serpent property, whose board includes André Gaumont.

The area also has several gold projects in development. Among them are Sirios’ Cheechoo gold deposit and Quebec Pre cious Metals’ Sakami (which, despite similar names, is a differ ent project from Genius’.)

One of the province’s largest claims holders, Azimut Explo ration, is able to take on exploration projects on vast, virtually unexplored terrain thanks to its data-driven approach.

Azimut’s software, AZtechMine, allows for predictive model ling by linking regional geoscientific data to a mineral database to model the footprint of undiscovered mineral resources. The software combines data from SIGÉOM – a publicly available online database, which the provincial government updates annually, and which Azimut CEO Jean-Marc Lulin claims is “uniquely robust” – with in-field data.

Exploration and development for these types of commodities is taking off in Quebec. “We saw at the last PDAC that there are a lot of people starving for lithium, and I can feel in the market that lithium plays are more easily financed than ever before,” saidSOQUEMBrisson.

is currently developing Moblan, a lithium project 130 kilometres from Chibougamau, in partnership with Aus tralian lithium producer Sayona Mining.

While there are multiple lithium projects in development in the province, Sayona intends to become North America’s first hard-rock lithium producer. The company, which also owns the nearby Authier project, which has received a positive feasibilty study, is in a joint-venture with U.S.-based Piedmont Lithium to restart operations at Sayona’s mine and concentrator in La Corne in the Abitibi. Sayona plans to invest approximately $98 million in the project, and is targetting to start spodumene concentrate deliveries between July 2023 and July 2024.

According to Jonathan Lafontaine, Mineral Exploration Activity Monitor at the Ministère de l’Énergie et des Ressources Naturelles (MERN), lithium exploration in James Bay shows a lot of promise. “Some of the discoveries currently being made are really turning priorities on their heads,” he said, pointing to Patriot Battery Metals, who recently released “very promising drilling results” on its Corvette project in upper James Bay. “That area had only been explored for gold and base metals. No one thought to look for lithium there, and yet, there it is.”

Also in James Bay, Winsome Resources, a newcomer from Australia, has three projects, with a maiden resource expected at its flagship Cancet project early next year.

“I think Canadian investors are still a little bit gun shy about lithium,” said Chris Evans, Winsome’s managing director, who built and brought into operation the Pilgangoora lithium mine and processing facility in Western Australia in 2017. “In Quebec, it feels very much like it did back then in WA: it is very much a land of opportunity… there are still new projects to be built, the expertise to put in the projects isn’t quite there.”

Nouveau Monde Graphite’s Matawanie project, in the south of the province, is about to start construction. The company has committed to building an all-electric mine, and is planning to

start operations as well as processing at its nearby Bécancour facility by the end of 2023.

Other companies exploring for the battery metal include Lomiko Metals, whose La Loutre project in the Laurentians promises an open-pit mine with a 14.7-year lifespan and a total life-of-mine out put of 1.4 million tonnes of graphite concentrate, according to a 2021 preliminary economic assessment report. Lomiko is currently start ing its preliminary feasibility study for the project, and plans to release an updated resource estimate in early 2023.

Exploration for rare earths is also picking up in Quebec, mostly up north. “There have been some findings in the Labrador Trough,” said Lafontaine. “And that doesn’t include all the rare earth showings near the Ungava Peninsula in Nunavik.”

He points to Commerce Resource Corp.’s monazite-domi nant Ashram deposit, which is the largest defined hardrock monazite deposit in North America, as well as Crater Lake, Imperial Mining Group’s scandium-rare-earth project in devel opment, and Torngat Metals’ Strange Lake project, which is one of the world’s largest rare earth mineral resources that contains both light and heavy types.

There are also some advanced projects in the Côte-Nord: SOQUEM has Kwyjibo, a discovery from 1993, at the develop ment stage, and Vital Metals, which owns Cheetah Resources’ Nechalacho project – Canada’s first producing rare earth ele ments mine – has recently acquired heavy-type rare earths proj ects Kipawa and Zeus.

Building up base metals

Brisson said the Abitibi is seeing a lot of exploration for nickel and there is some activity in northern Quebec, though “it’s not as high as Abitibi, only a few players,” he said. “If there are new discoveries, there will be more interest; it is pretty recent because of the rising commodity prices and because it’s more expensive to explore in the North.”

Projects in the Abitibi include Wallbridge Minings’ 73,900hectare Grasset, a nickel-copper-platinum group metals (PGM) discovery about 50 kilometres from Matagami on land that was initially explored for gold in the 1950s.

Up in Nunavik, Orford Mining Corporation is developing an advanced-stage nickel project at its West Raglan property on the Cape Smith belt – this belt hosts two operating mines in the region: Nunavik Nickel and Glencore’s Raglan mine. Other advanced projects include Nickel North Exploration’s Hawk Ridge, a copper-nickel-cobalt-PGM mineral resource. Among early exploration efforts, Midland Exploration is in a strategic alliance with BHP on a major exploration program in the area.

“In the top north of the province, near the Arctic Ocean, there is a lot of potential for these types of base metal deposits,” said Brisson. “When you’re looking inland, it is more difficult because there’s no infrastructure, just a desert of rocks and lakes.”

Lafontaine points out that Côte-Nord is also rich in nickel. “The extensions of those ore-bearing geological zones in the Labrador Trough, they also hold incredible showings and deposits,” he said. “There is exploration to try and see if these high-value deposits can be extracted by these companies.”

One such company is Murchison Metals, whose nickelcopper-cobalt project in the Haut-Plateau de la Manicouagan (HPM) has a dominant land position of 57,600 hectares with camp-scale potential.

While Quebec has a long history with copper – early records of the colony of New France refer to deposits of copper on the

Côte-Nord that were granted to Jacques Cartier’s nephew by King Louis XV of France – there are currently no mines whose primary product is copper, although it is a by-product for multi ple gold, nickel and zinc operations.

Today, there are several companies, like Doré Copper, pursu ing brownfield projects in the Abitibi and some others looking for new deposits on the Côte-Nord.

“There are promising showings for copper in the Grenville Province. Everyone assumed it was high-metamorphic terrain, and yet companies put boots on the ground and found poten tial,” said AccordingLafontaine.toBrisson, SOQUEM’s portfolio has multiple cop per-zinc properties in the Abitibi. Its current focus is on B26Broullan, a silver-copper-zinc project 90 kilometres west of Matagami.“Thearea was developed by Glencore. They extracted zinc, copper and gold since 1950 or so, and last June they completed the extraction of their last mine, so the mill is waiting for new ore and we decided to help,” he explained.

Weathering uncertainty

Despite a brief downturn in 2020 due to the pandemic and challenging market conditions throughout most of 2022, explo ration in Quebec is proceeding at a healthy pace.

“The financings have slowed down, but companies have enough capital to keep them going. Exploration programs are advancing,” said Paul Carmel, president and CEO of SIDEX.

According to Natural Resources Canada, Quebec was Canada’s leading mining jurisdiction in 2021, with $964 million in spending on exploration and deposit appraisal activities, which accounted for 26 per cent of total exploration and development spending in Canada. Exploration expenditures alone accounted for $522 mil lion in the province, according to the ISQ. This was the highest it had been in the past decade, and a significant rebound from 2020, when lower commodity prices and COVID-19’s impact on opera tions brought spending down to $341 million.

However, Carmel does see a lull in activity on the ground. “Companies seem to have somewhat slowed down their explo ration efforts for a variety of reasons,” he said, citing delays on site and in assay labs caused by the pandemic and the global skilled labour shortage.

“What we need right now is a big discovery,” he said. “History has shown that is the biggest catalyst in turning things around.”

Despite the looming threat of a recession, Savard remains confident the future is bright. “Not only juniors, but majors are back in Quebec. Rio Tinto and BHP are back and doing partner ships, looking for not only gold but nickel and the strategic met als and minerals,” he said. “They realize there is not only outstanding potential, but the world is going through uncertain ties and companies are focusing on safe jurisdictions.”

The latest provincial numbers show claims are still on the rise. “We’re at numbers we haven’t seen since the boom of 2010s,” said Lafontaine. He reports that in late July there were over 215,000 active claims in the province – a nine per cent increase since the last figures reported by the province in 2021.

Quebec also has exploration projects for zinc, niobium, apatite and, more recently, diamonds in progress.

“There is exploration activity in lots of places and the results are absolutely stunning,” said Lafontaine. “It is in the hundreds of exploration projects that may eventually show potential for economic extraction.” CIM

Greenstone builds on a good-neighbour philosophy

Partnerships were formed and local community buy-in was obtained before construction of the gold mine could begin

By Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

When fully built and commissioned in the first half of 2024, Greenstone Gold Mines, located in northwest ern Ontario – a 60-40 partnership between Equinox Gold and Orion Mine Finance Group – will be one of Canada’s largest gold mines.

Located in the municipality of Greenstone, some 250 kilo metres northeast of Thunder Bay – an area that was home to numerous underground mines from the 1930s to the 1970s – the US$1.225 billion project is expected to produce an average of 366,000 ounces of gold annually over its 14-year mine life. Its all-in sustaining cost is calculated to be US$803 per ounce, put ting it in the lower third of the industry average.

Construction at Greenstone finally officially began in October 2021, but the project has been almost a decade in the making.

In 2014, when plans were initially announced by its then owner, Premier Gold Mines, it faced complex challenges that its predecessors, including the Hardrock, MacLeod-Cockshutt and Mosher mines that helped build the surrounding communities, could never have even imagined in the 1930s.

One of the most obvious problems was that much of the pro ject’s potential footprint was already occupied. A golf course, 65 homes, a beloved scenic landmark commemorating the area’s mining history, a 5.4-kilometre stretch of Highway 11, and other vital infrastructure, including an Ontario Provincial Police [OPP] station, an Ontario Ministry of Transportation patrol yard, and a Hydro One electrical substation and distribution lines, already occupied the land.

Another notable issue is that the location for the future mine is also situated on the traditional territories of four First

After a decade of development and negotiations, construction is finally under way at Greenstone Gold Mines.

Nations – the Animbiigoo Zaagi’igan Anishinaabek, the Aroland First Nation, the Ginoogaming First Nation and the Long Lake #58 First Nation – and that the mine’s construction and opera tion would also affect members of the Métis Nation of Ontario.

Additionally, the existing power grid that supplies the local residents and businesses could not meet the future project’s needs, which meant Greenstone would have to build a new power station and a 14-kilometre natural-gas pipeline to connect it to the TC Energy Canadian Mainline natural-gas pipeline.

The magnitude of the project is not the only aspect that makes it notable. It is also worth noting that along the journey to develop the project, some of these apparent challenges have evolved into the project’s strengths and advantages.

Relocation

Negotiations for land acquisitions and relocations were absolutely necessary for the project, explained Greenstone gen eral manager Eric Lamontagne, “but it was challenging.” Lam ontagne, who joined the company in 2013 – the same year negotiations began – pointed out that it took slightly longer to complete the negotiation phase (which ended in 2018) than it will to construct the actual mine.

Although there was a lot of support in the community for the project and the economic benefits it will bring, including an antic ipated 500 full-time jobs once the mine opens, Greenstone recog nized that for those who would have to give up their homes to give way for the mine, there would also be a sense of loss, which takes time to process. Many of the homeowners were elderly and look ing to downsize, which made negotiations with them easier for Greenstone, but there were also some young families. “It was a bit harder for them,” said Lamontagne. “But we met with them and we took time to make sure we could find a way to compensate them well and to respect the process. It was helpful to not rush or try to push people out. It was about being respectful.”

Sixty-five of the homes were part of a neighbourhood in the town of Geraldton. The town also featured an 18-hole golf course that had been constructed in two stages beginning over a half century ago for the workforce of the now shuttered Little Long Lac mine. Little Long Lac was opened in 1935 and its exis tence gave rise to Geraldton. Nine of the golf course’s holes were located on the construction path of the new portion of highway.

The local municipal government, which owned the golf course, voted to sell nine holes to Greenstone, as well as the headframe of the old MacLeod-Cockshutt mine, which sat as a monument to the area’s mining history. Greenstone removed and salvaged the top portion of the headframe in anticipation of relocating it to a new commemorative location that will be determined with the support of the community.

Indigenous communities

When the Long Lake #58 First Nation, whose land claims have not yet been settled, heard rumours of a mining project being built on its traditional land, the community reacted quickly, said the First Nation’s Chief Judy Desmoulin. “Rather than just standing on the sidelines, we got involved right away.”

Her First Nation signed a joint memorandum of understanding in 2014 and reached a final agreement with Greenstone in 2018.

“For this agreement, we didn’t want to just have that typical guarantee of jobs,” said Chief Desmoulin. “That wasn’t going to cut it. That’s good for some of the individuals, but we wanted to benefit the community as a whole.”

The goal of Greenstone and the Indigenous communities which have all approved the project was to build a positive long-term relationship and partnership. Historically, resourcestrapped Indigenous communities have often found it challeng ing to negotiate with mining companies that have far more access to expertise. In this case, said Chief Desmoulin, “it was a level playing field, so to speak.” She explained that Greenstone “provided enough funding for us to make sure it was going to be a good deal for us and that we have funding to hire our experts and cover all the bases. That in itself was a good and better process. We had a really good advisor as well.”

Lamontagne believes the key to the success of the negotia tions was active listening, respect and compromise. “I’ve been in all these negotiations since the beginning and for both sides what we started off with and what we ended up agreeing to was different,” he said. “We listened to each other and progressed and compromised to find common ground.”

The partnerships have resulted in numerous initiatives that reinforce the relationship. For example, one employee from each of the four First Nations and one from the local Métis com munity are all included on the team of technicians whose job it is to conduct environmental monitoring. That monitoring includes testing surface and ground water, air and soils, and checking on the health of aquatic and terrestrial life in order to regularly report to the government and communities. Once a week, they share their findings with the community. “They are engaged and it’s very transparent,” said Lamontagne. “In the past, the mine would have done the sampling and the other party would have tried to look at the data, which sometimes would not have been shared in its totality.”

The Indigenous communities also negotiated preferential treatment for contracts. “We got the contract to build and to run the camp and the contract to supply the fuel to the mine,” explained Chief Desmoulin. With the new fuel-services com pany, “we now have our own infrastructure for our own equip ment and we put it on our own land,” she said. “We’re looking to expand that to deliver services to others besides the mine.”

The First Nations are developing a mandatory cultural train ing program to help everyone from workers to contractors to management understand the history and culture of the First Nations and what they have endured. “When the government

Project Specs

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Initially, Chief Desmoulin said that Greenstone management didn’t understand why the First Nations wanted to be directly involved with human resources issues and conflicts. She explained that in the past, when members of the First Nations experienced harassment or racism, they were often powerless to do anything about it. “We are learning to stand up for each other,” she said. “We’re not going to let those atrocious kinds of things happen to each other anymore.”

Additionally, outside of the agreements, Greenstone pro posed that the new OPP station be relocated to First Nation land. The four First Nations are also working in collaboration with Greenstone to install a new 10-megawatt solar panel that will offset some of the station’s electrical needs with green energy. These discussions are currently under way.

Construction

In July of this year, an average of 900 workers were on site for the construction phase of the project, which includes build ing new infrastructure as well as new mining facilities and a 1.8-kilometre-long, one-kilometre-wide and 600-metre-deep open pit. As of press time, more than 35 per cent of the project’s construction had been completed.

“The construction is everywhere,” said Lamontagne. “Peo ple are very enthusiastic.”

Greenstone expects most of the mine’s buildings to be erected and enclosed before winter, which will then permit workers to advance the internal installations during the winter months. Four CAT 793 250-tonne haul trucks and a Komatsu PC5500 excavator arrived on site this summer for assembly. By September, Greenstone hopes to begin pre-production. With a strip ratio of 5:1, the project will generate a tremendous amount of waste rock, but Greenstone will be using some of it to build the access road and the tailings storage facility. Ore will be stockpiled to give the fully commissioned mine a head start on gold production in 2024.

Bertho Caron, Greenstone’s engineering and construction project director, said 98 per cent of the engineering for the proj ect was essentially complete as of July. The feasibility study was completed and, technically, most of all project concepts were completed about six years ago and have gone through numerous reviews, including by third parties and auditors when the property changed hands over the years. One of the project’s somewhat uncommon engineering characteristics is the fact that its open-pit mine will incorporate historical under ground mines, but the company does not see that as an issue. “There are all kinds of procedures to do that safely,” said Caron. “We don’t need to reinvent the wheel.”

What is of concern, however, is the metal scrap left behind in the old Hardrock, MacLeod-Cockshutt and Mosher under ground mines combined with the fact that Greenstone opted to

go with a Weir Group-manufactured high pressure grinding rolls (HPGR) circuit rather than a conventional SAG mill. HPGRs, while being more energy-efficient than the more con ventional technology, are susceptible to damage by scrap metal from the historical mines. “We recently added more redun dancy to the system to remove the trash early on in the circuit,” said Caron.

From challenges to strengths

Last year, when Equinox Gold paid $612 million to acquire a 60 per cent stake in the project, instead of seeing the complica tions associated with relocation and the challenges in building a positive social licence, it saw the strengths Greenstone has created over years through hard work and listening, compro mise and “Opportunitiesrespect. to acquire ownership interests in large-scale quality projects in mining friendly jurisdictions are rare,” said Peter Hardie, Equinox Gold’s chief financial officer. “Greenstone was one of the largest undeveloped gold mines in Canada and, once built, it will be the fourth largest gold mine in Canada pro ducing gold at low cost. In addition, it was permitted and essen tially shovel ready, with excellent community and Indigenous support, a strong financial partner in Orion Mine Finance and an opportunity to consolidate a majority ownership at a good valu ation and a top-notch team already in place. This combination is even more rare. When we had the chance to aquire it, we did so. CIM

Planninganythingfor

Enterprise resource planning software is finding its home in the mining industry as a flexible way to manage operations

By Lynn Greiner

Once the province of accountants and business managers, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software has spread its wings over the years and found a home in pretty much every area of pretty much every business, including, yes, mining.

Defined as a category of integrated business management software that an organization uses to collect, store, manage and interpret data from its activities, ERP came into being in the 1990s, and by 2021, market analysts at Gartner Group estimated the global ERP market at US$35 billion. The term came into being from two directions: the business side, encompassing financials, human resources and other back-office tasks, and the manufacturing side, where Gartner first used it to include the capabilities of material requirements planning (MRP). Now, as Gartner defines it, it does a lot more and its scope is increasing, but the defining features prevail: the tools share a common process and data model, covering broad and deep operational end-to-end processes, such as those found in finance, HR, distri bution, manufacturing, service and the supply chain. In indus tries like mining, industrial health and safety, required permits and compliance with regulations around dangerous goods man agement are also managed with the help of an ERP system.

Building your own solution

Because it is modular, a vendor’s ERP system can be assem bled from multiple components, which is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that companies can choose the bits that they want to implement and ignore those they deem irrelevant. The curse is its complexity; it can be expensive and time-con suming to customize and assemble those selected bits.

“Mining companies use ERP software to help with the stan dardizing of business processes, managing materials and allocat ing resources like workforce, equipment, finances and machinery,”

ERP software helps mining companies with the standardizing of business processes, managing materials and allocating resources.

noted Mike Reazin, senior direc tor, Canada operations, at con tractor and supplier information management firm ISN. “Mining companies initially used ERP systems for the materials and asset management component; however, this has shifted to encompass additional areas like worker qualifications, work force management, data intelli gence, production, sales orders and customer relations manage ment. ERP systems act as the centralized location for informa tion across mining companies, connecting their departments and data from different tools or otherAntonysystems.”Bourne, senior vicepresident, industries, at enter prise software vendor IFS, which serves many industries including mining, sees a similar sequence of events. “Normally when you start talking to mining compa nies, they are more on the asset side of it,” he said. “They’re talking about the equipment in the mine, mining, whatever they’re trying to mine, etc. and how they’re going to look after it.”

But at the same time, he pointed out, they need to know whether they are profitable, whether they have people with the right skills and certifications – traditional back-office functions –as well as asset management and supply chain management, and that means they use ERP.

All of these functions can be common to many industries, but enterprise software giant SAP’s global lead for mining, Ruediger Schroedter, enumerated additional requirements spe cific to mining.

“In mining, the different commodities are traded on mar kets. They fluctuate over the day and over the years, so [the price] is going to go up and down. And you don’t have typically a fixed price, so you need to handle these various rules around this to capture the data from marketplaces like London Metal Exchange and various other places in the system so that you can price all things correctly,” he said. “It is the same on the pur chasing side, especially on the metal side, when you are pro cessing metals, or if you’re a mining company and run smelters or buy third party materials.”

Planning shipments of bulk materials like ore has its chal lenges as well; the ERP system has to capture data on scheduling the shipments, their weight, chartering ships, tracking them and monitoring product quality. “You have to capture this kind of information on the ERP side, as it goes back into the billing and influences the price a customer pays, or you pay as a buyer of source materials,” he explained.

In other areas, however, ERP may not be as useful. Schroedter said that mine planning, which considers geological informa tion, is typically performed using other solutions. But, he said, companies are looking at integrating data from the plans into their supply chain planning solutions to determine how produc tion plans match up with sales forecasts.

“Currently, this is often only done through Excel or some thing like that,” he observed. “But this is an area where they’re also looking into more corporate and consolidated solutions, where it’s not as easy to lose data, and somebody doesn’t have to update spreadsheets all the time. But this is an area where they are moving Schroedterslowly.”alsosees slower adoption of ERP in the produc tionExplorationarea.

is another area where ERP isn’t a good fit, Bourne added, but it still has its place in the process. “They’ll certainly use an ERP system to plan resources or people to be part of that activity, and because they’ll want to know how much it’s costing to do exploration activities. It could be everything from flight costs, food, to hiring, or rental of some equipment to be able to do something, or to buying some services from another company.”

Tracking sustainability

One area that ERP systems are increasingly addressing is companies’ impact on the environment.

“Mining companies are facing continued pressure by investors, stakeholders and regulatory bodies to ensure they operate with transparency and reduce negative impact left by operations by establishing environmental, social and governance (ESG) targets. This has shifted ESG to the forefront for mining companies, putting an emphasis on measuring ESG performance, data and reporting,” said Reazin. “ERP systems play a fundamen tal role with the collection and reporting of ESG data by combin ing information across the whole supply chain. Collecting ESG data can be challenging for mining companies as numerous sources play a role – from direct operations to vendors and sup pliers. For example, Scope 1 and 2 emissions come from opera tions and production, whereas Scope 3 emissions come from indirect sources and are provided by external companies in the supply chain.”

Several ERP programs allow for the tracking of Scope 3 emissions, which are notoriously hard to accurately measure.

Scope 3 emissions, Schroedter noted, are the hardest ones to track, because they are not generated directly by the company, but by the companies that supply and service it, and the cus tomers who use its products. And they’re usually the largest com ponent of a company’s carbon footprint. Several ERP products, including SAP, offer modules that track all three emission scopes.

Yet not every company has the same pain points. He said some customers are looking at the carbon emissions from outbound shipping by land and sea, while others are more concerned about the emissions from their operations, such as those from trucks and other equipment on site. “But sustainability is not only lim ited to carbon footprint,” he said. “In mining especially, water consumption is important, especially in dry areas in Latin Amer ica, Australia, for example. Then there’s the waste – wastewater treatment is important.” ERP modules can track that as well, alerting companies to anomalies that need attention.

One way companies are approaching the sustainability issue is by creating a circular economy and repurposing waste, Bourne said. “And this is where an ERP system can come in. Because if you think about it, ERP has traditionally come from a manufacturing environment, and by using manufacturing type processes, you can reuse that waste and turn it into something else. That requires ERP capabilities to be able to handle that process. So again, it’s all about this circular business model to make sure that they are maximizing the stuff that they mined, but also making sure that they minimize the waste from a sus tainable point of view.”

There is also a big move to ERP in the cloud as Internet con nectivity in more remote areas has improved, Schroedter said, although he sees smaller players doing it first, since their envi ronments are usually less complex, with fewer connections from their ERP systems to external systems to worry about.

It increasingly seems like ERP is becoming the Swiss Army Knife of mining software, and more attachments are being added as the industry evolves. Schroedter said that optimization of the selection of ships to carry ore based on criteria such as the lowest carbon emissions on a particular route is in the cards, and he has seen proofs of concept for creating digital twins of pro cessing

“There’splants.the perception to overcome that ERP is only for cor porate functions, but in reality we have a lot of things to offer that a typical mine manager, or operations in general, can use –business analytics, for example – connecting data from various sources to provide insights. This is an area where we are work ing strongly on and includes this business supply chain,” he said.

Bourne agreed. “[Mining companies] pigeonhole an ERP solution and EAM (enterprise asset management) solution in different holes,” he said. “And I think there’s a blurring of the lines that’s going to happen, that people won’t look at it as an ERP, but they’ll just look at it saying, ‘I need a mining solution, I need a solution to run my mine,’ and that will have asset man agement, you’ll have financial capabilities, it’ll have health and safety in there, it’ll have all the bits in there. And that’s where I’d like to think it will head to.” CIM

Companies are looking at using ERP software to integrate their mine plans into their supply chain planning solutions.

CIM is your one stop shop

New partnerships and homegrown initiatives provide a wealth of professional development opportunities

By Michele Beacom

As a professional institute, part of CIM’s mission is to curate knowledge and develop expertise in the minerals industry. Over CIM’s 124-year history, the institute has done that through the publication of books and special volumes, the hosting of numerous conferences with technical proceedings and short courses, the circulation of the CIM Bulletin for decades, which went on to become the CIM Journal and CIM Magazine publications.

The opportunities afforded by virtual events today mean there is a near endless source of possibilities for professional development available to mining and mineral industry profes sionals. But with the abundance of courses available, it can be difficult to find and select the most appropriate ones. CIM has gathered the opportunities available under the CIM Professional Development umbrella.

CIM Academy has all the video content from CIM conference presentations, short courses, webinars and more, inclu ding all of the CIM Knowledge Exchange webinars. With subjects ranging from mining operations, innovation and tech nology and metallurgy and materials, CIM Academy covers the most important topics in the industry.

CIM has partnered with Edumine, an online learning platform that provides professional development training for people in the mining industry. CIM mem bers get a discounted rate for courses on mining, geotechnics, exploration, mine ral processing, environment, leadership, finance, maintenance and health and safety. Upon completion of an Edumine course, participants will receive recog nized credentials, approved by the Inter national Association of Continuing Education and Training (IACET), that will help them advance their career.

CIM members can also take advantage of the CIM Technical Paper Library, home to more than 10,000 papers, star ting as far back as 1927. Can’t find the paper you are looking for? CIM member ship also grants access to SME’s techni cal paper library, OneMine, which has CIM papers and proceedings along with those of international societies such as AusIMM and SAIMM, among many other organizations.

Every year the McGill Cosmo Stochastic Mine Planning Laboratory, a global centre for leading-edge research and gra duate education in orebody modelling and strategic mine planning, presents the Professional Development Series. Spon sored by CIM and its sister organizations the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME), the Australasian Ins titute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM) and the South African Insti tute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM), seminar participants of the series receive a certificate of completion.

CIM has also partnered with MindEdge Learning for personal development and mining-adjacent courses such as creativity and innovation, data analytics, emerging technologies, sustainable management and many others. Like with Edumine, CIM members receive a discount to take these certificate online courses.

On the lighter side of professional deve lopment is the informative and entertai ning Mining Now podcast series. Access more than 50 episodes in which host Jer rod Downey interviews experts through out the mining industry on subjects as diverse as modern mining and proces sing equipment to the skilled labour shortage to team building to meeting evolving safety regulations.

With all these opportunities for professional development available on the CIM website, there’s no reason not to learn something new today. For more information, visit www.cim.org/professional-development/ CIM

SEPTEMBRE/OCTOBRE 2022

L’engagement des lecteurs

En début d’année, nous vous avons demandé de nous parler de vous et de nous faire part de vos habitudes d’utilisation des médias. Nous menons ce son dage chaque année afin de comprendre qui sont nos lecteurs, leurs préfé rences et la façon dont nous pouvons affiner nos travaux afin de répondre à vos besoins. Notre sondage auprès des lecteurs aide aussi notre équipe des ventes dans ses communications avec des annonceurs existants et potentiels.

Généralement, les réponses que nous obtenons dans nos sondages périodiques ne changent pas tellement au fil du temps. Toutefois, cela faisait trois ans que nous n’avions pas demandé leur avis à nos lecteurs, et une pandémie a entre-temps bou leversé le monde. En 2019, nous ne vous avions même pas demandé si les sémi naires Web faisaient partie de vos habitudes d’utilisation des médias axés sur l’industrie minière. À ce moment-là, nous commencions nous-même à peine à les expérimenter. Cette année, près de la moitié des personnes interrogées ont indiqué que les séminaires Web constituaient leur source d’information de prédilection pour tout ce qui a trait au contenu relatif à l’industrie minière.

Ainsi, après une pause cet été, je suis heureux de vous annoncer le retour de notre séminaire Web de la série Solutions Exchange (échange de solutions) du CIM Magazine. Nous étudions également comment élargir notre offre de séminaires Web pour l’avenir et tentons de déterminer si ce format bref et concis est une for mule gagnante pour survivre à la pandémie.

contenu francophone

42 Table des matières

42 Lettre de l’éditeur

43 Mot de la présidente

article de fond

45 Un avenir prometteur dans la belle province

Si l’or continue de briller, les explorateurs sont attirés vers de nouvelles frontières et par les possibilités qu’offrent les métaux nécessaires à la fabrication de batteries

Par Dinah Zeldin

profil de projet

50 Greenstone tire parti de la philosophie du bon voisinage

Des partenariats ont été formés et la communauté locale a apporté son soutien à la mine avant même que sa construction ne commence

Par Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

J’étais aussi ravi de recevoir les commentaires non sollicités d’un lecteur. Que ce soit au travers de sondages ou de courriers, vos points de vue contribuent à amé liorer le magazine. Ainsi, je laisse le dernier mot de cet éditorial à l’auteur de ce courrier :

Dans votre lettre de la rédaction intitulée Coup de chance, en p. 47, mai 2022) et l’article y afférent, Prélude, en p. 49, vous invitez les sociétés d’exploration à réduire activement leur empreinte carbone. Si cette approche est noble et cherche indéniablement à conscientiser, elle me paraît peu clairvoyante. Plus spécifique ment, vous y faites référence sans vous soucier de la « matérialité ».

Réfléchissez à l’ampleur de l’enjeu qui se profile pour l’industrie minière. Ce secteur doit fournir les métaux nécessaires pour atteindre la neutralité carbone et transformer le secteur des transports à l’horizon 2050. Ainsi, en moins de 30 ans, en Amérique du Nord, on nous demande de convertir quelque 400 millions de véhicules en des véhicules électriques (VÉ) ou autres moteurs à combustion non interne. Concernant les VÉ, chacun d’eux requiert une batterie d’une demitonne faite de métaux extraits et transformés à partir de 250 tonnes de matériaux, obtenus par extraction.

Ceci équivaut à 100 milliards de tonnes de matériaux obtenus par extraction minière. Et je ne parle que de l’Amérique du Nord ! L’Europe compte un nombre semblable de véhicules. Quant à la Chine et l’Inde, elles devront en fabriquer ou en convertir le double. Nous devrons ensuite transformer le secteur de l’énergie en un secteur axé sur les carburants sans carbone et le relier au réseau électrique. C’est une tâche gargantuesque.

Nous pouvons bien entendu réduire le nombre de futurs véhicules en amélio rant l’efficacité du transport des personnes et des marchandises, mais toutes ces solutions requièrent une utilisation accrue de métaux. En surchargeant les socié tés d’exploration de lignes directrices intangibles, axées sur le bien-être et l’idéo logie de conscientisation proche du courant woke, l’exploration est directement affectée car on lui impose d’investir son argent et son temps dans des choses qui ne feront pas de différence. Si ces lignes directrices contribuent à renforcer notre efficacité, je suis totalement pour. Mais dans le cas contraire, nous faisons (au mieux) fausse route. L’exploration doit investir son temps et son argent afin d’être aussi efficace que possible pour développer et construire des mines qui nous aide ront à atteindre la neutralité carbone d’ici 2050. Il ne nous reste qu’une génération pour y parvenir ! Il est grand temps de se concentrer sur des faits tangibles, et d’accomplir le travail.

Ryan Bergen, Rédacteur en @Ryan_CIM_Mageditor@cim.orgchef

– Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse, président et directeur général de Contango Ore Inc.

Élever la gestion des risques au niveau supérieur

La très honorable Mary Simon, gouverneure générale du Canada, annonçait le 29 juin 2022 les nominations de l’Ordre du Canada (OC), l’un des prix les plus prestigieux de notre nation. Parmi les lauréats de ce prix figurait David Thomas Lynch d’Edmonton, en Alberta, qui a été nommé Officier de l’Ordre du Canada « pour ses contributions à la science et aux techniques du génie de l’environnement au Canada, et pour son leadership visionnaire dans l’enseignement du génie ».

De 1994 à 2015, pendant quatre mandats consécutifs, le Dr Lynch a été doyen de la faculté de génie de l’Université de l’Alberta. Son approche a été « différente de celle adoptée par les autres doyens. [Il] s’est concentré sur le gouvernement et l’indus trie, et a été membre de plus de 30 agences et conseils consulta tifs basés en Alberta, nationaux, internationaux, de gestion, du gouvernement et d’entreprise. Il a créé des relations de confiance avec de nombreuses personnes durant ses fonctions », déclarait Ellen Schoeck dans Born to Build (nés pour construire), une his toire des personnalités de la faculté de génie de l’université de l’Alberta. La confiance et la collaboration étaient les fondements qui ont mené au succès exceptionnel de la faculté de génie de l’Université de l’Alberta durant le mandant du Dr Lynch. Ce succès s’est notamment soldé par une hausse de 77 % des inscriptions

totales des étudiants de premier cycle, une hausse de 341 % des inscriptions des étudiants de deuxième cycle, une collecte de 950 millions de dollars visant à financer des initiatives et des développements spécifiques, 20 chaires de recherche indus trielle du Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et en génie du Canada (CRSNG), et plus de 600 millions de dollars en financement externe de la recherche.

Pour moi, par contre, la clef de voûte de l’héritage que nous lègue le Dr Lynch, dont les avantages perdureront pendant de longues années, a pris forme à la fin de son mandat de doyen. Le Dr Lynch et sa femme Joan, avec de nombreux collègues, amis et partisans, ont généreusement offert plus de 6 millions de dol lars pour la création de la David and Joan Lynch School of Engineering Safety and Risk Management (la faculté David et Joan Lynch de gestion des risques et de la sécurité dans le domaine du génie).

Grâce à leur générosité, cette vision partagée par beaucoup est devenue réalité. C’est notamment le cas de Gord Winkel, membre de longue date de l’ICM et récipiendaire à trois reprises du prix des éminents conférenciers de l’ICM et de la médaille 2019 pour le leadership dans la sécurité minière du bureau national de l’ICM. En 2010, retraité de son poste de direction à Syncrude et après avoir passé plus d’une décennie en tant que conférencier invité dans le programme ayant donné vie à la faculté Lynch, M. Gord a rejoint la faculté au titre de pro fesseur de génie industriel. Sa vision était d’élargir la diffusion et la portée du projet. En 2016, cette vision a abouti à la création de la faculté Lynch, laquelle a mis en place un cours de dernière année d’études en gestion des risques, une compétence fonda mentale que devaient suivre tous les étudiants en génie de pre mier cycle dans chaque discipline du génie à l’université.

Aujourd’hui, à la faculté Lynch, la mise en confiance et la démarche coopérative se portent très bien. Une équipe croi ssante de dirigeants universitaires fait régulièrement équipe avec des entreprises, des agences, des associations et d’autres organi sations afin d’améliorer l’efficacité de la gestion des risques sur de nombreux fronts au travers de la recherche, de l’enseignement, d’ateliers et de discours programmes, en mettant à profit le conseil exécutif de la faculté composé de chefs de file de l’industrie et en travaillant dans des secteurs variés. En 2022, la faculté Lynch atteindra un tournant. En effet, 5 000 étudiants en génie auront obtenu leur diplôme avec une spécialisation fondamentale dans le domaine de la sécurité. Ce chiffre devrait doubler dans les cinq années à venir. Les 10 000 ingénieurs spécialisés dans la sécu rité et la gestion des risques dans le domaine du génie qui obtien dront leur diplôme auront un impact et contribueront à sauver des vies, à éviter des dangers, à protéger l’environnement et aideront les entreprises à éviter des pertes terribles. C’est un héritage durable, en effet. Félicitations à toutes celles et tous ceux qui par ticipent à ces travaux.

Je ne peux m’empêcher de me demander ce qui sera possible en mettant à profit ces travaux par l’intermédiaire de la société de la santé et de la sécurité (SSS) et du comité des écoles des mines canadiennes de l’ICM. Ce qui est clair et certain, c’est que la technologie, la collaboration et l’amélioration de la gestion des risques sont des catalyseurs importants de l’avenir durable du secteur minier au Canada.

Anne Marie Toutant Présidente de l’ICM

la belle province

régions plus éloignées du nord du Québec. Simultanément, les demandes changeantes du marché et le solide soutien du gouver nement ont renforcé l’intérêt dans la recherche d’autres matières premières.

d’autres matières premières nécessaires aux énergies vertes.

Le Québec se trouve invariablement en tête de liste dans toutes les catégories de l’Annual Survey of Mining Companies (l’enquête annuelle sur les sociétés minières) de l’institut Fraser

La région du Nunavik dans le nord du Québec présente un grand potentiel pour la prospection des éléments de terres rares.

à l’échelle mondiale. En 2021, la province s’est retrouvée en sixième place en termes d’attrait pour les placements, et en cin quième place pour la perception de la politique.

Mis à part la richesse minérale des sols de la région, ces classe ments s’expliquent en partie par l’écosystème solide du gouverne ment provincial pour soutenir l’industrie. Outre les crédits d’impôt, des entités financées par le gouvernement soutiennent également l’industrie, des activités communautaires au dévelop pement de projets. SOQUEM, par exemple, travaille sur le terrain pour créer des projets d’exploration communautaires et elle fait équipe avec des petites sociétés minières. SIDEX, un fonds d’inves tissement gouvernemental, investit dans divers projets en phase préliminaire d’exploration dans la province, et Investissement Québec soutient des projets dans le développement. En outre, plu sieurs fonds de pension investissent lourdement dans le secteur.

D’après Mathieu Savard, président de Minière Osisko et prési dent du conseil d’administration de l’association de l’exploration minière du Québec (AEMQ), le Québec est l’un des plus impor tants territoires miniers dans le monde. « Les petites sociétés minières et les sociétés travaillant au Québec bénéficient d’un soutien incroyable », indiquait-il. « En termes de territoire, le Québec est l’une des régions les plus intéressantes au monde, point final. »

De l’or, mais pas seulement

Malgré la diversité des métaux et des minéraux que recher chent les sociétés d’exploration, les données provinciales indi quent que l’or reste le plus important moteur d’investissement. Les groupes de matières premières entraînant le plus de dépenses en termes d’exploration et de mises en valeur des gise ments étaient en 2021 les métaux précieux (72 %), suivis des métaux communs (11 %) et des métaux ferreux (12 %). Toutefois, on peut largement attribuer cet écart en termes de dépenses à de grands projets de réhabilitation de friches industrielles, qui investissent davantage dans le forage.

D’après Steven Bowles, associé directeur de Nebari Holdings, une société mondiale se spécialisant dans le financement par emprunt et la prise de participation au capital social dans les res sources naturelles, si l’or est voué à conserver sa dominance en termes de forage, la proportion de métaux communs et d’autres matières premières indispensables aux énergies vertes augmen tera régulièrement. « La tendance continuera d’évoluer à mesure que le marché se spécialise dans les métaux nécessaires à la fabri cation de batteries, et que l’on commence à promouvoir les pro jets dédiés aux métaux communs. Nous développons une capacité en aval pour le graphite et le lithium », expliquait-il.

Tony Brisson, président et directeur général de SOQUEM, est d’avis que la tendance au Québec se caractérise par la diversifica tion de l’exploration et des activités minières.

« Nous essayons de développer un portefeuille équilibré asso ciant les projets aurifères, les métaux communs et les métaux stratégiques tels que le lithium afin d’être fin prêts à développer des partenariats pour tout type de matière première », indiquait M. Brisson. Le portefeuille de SOQUEM de 55 projets comprend de l’or, du cuivre, du zinc, de l’argent, du nickel, du cobalt, des terres rares, du graphite, du vanadium et du lithium.

« Ces dernières années, nous nous intéressons davantage à d’autres types de matières premières telles que le lithium et les minéraux critiques », déclarait-il. « Nous avons fait cette transition car le marché et la demande des matières premières évoluent au fil

des décennies. Il y a 30 ans, personne ne cherchait du lithium, mais aujourd’hui, cette ressource est extrêmement populaire. »

Forage plus profond dans l’Abitibi

Les concessions ne couvrent que 6 % de la province, aussi le Québec reste largement ouvert à l’exploration. Même les districts aurifères établis comme l’Abitibi-Témiscamingue ont encore un grand potentiel, surtout dans les profondeurs.

Le projet aurifère Windfall de 12 523 hectares de Minière Osisko est situé dans le canton d’Urban, dans le territoire d’Eeyou Istchee Baie-James de la province. Il illustre parfaite ment les possibilités qu’offrent les grands gisements du district aurifère le plus historique aux sociétés qui disposent d’un budget leur permettant de forer profond. Windfall possède ce qu’il pré tend être le trou de forage au diamant le plus long du Canada, de 3 467 mètres.« UrbanBarry était considéré comme une zone dépourvue d’intérêt jusqu’à ce que l’on y [développe] un gisement de pre mière catégorie », indiquait M. Savard. « Aujourd’hui, l’intégra lité de la zone est jalonnée. » La société finalise son programme de forage, et avec 1 672 702 mètres de forage, il s’agit du plus grand programme de forage que le monde a connu ses cinq der nières années, indiquait-il. La production à Windfall devrait com mencerOutreen 2025.Windfall, la région déborde d’activité. Des projets de développement et d’exploration aurifères sont en cours, à diverses étapes. Parmi les plus grands acteurs, BonTerra Resources, qui fait aussi partie du camp Urban Barry émergent, a un portefeuille de ressources de plus de trois millions d’onces (l’équivalent de 85 tonnes) d’or. Sur la faille Cadillac, O3 Mining, une société essaimée d’Osisko, s’étend sur 65 000 hectares. O3 Mining devrait commencer la production à son projet aurifère de Marban en 2026, et a deux autres projets en cours. Entre Val-d’Or et Rouyn Noranda se trouve Radisson Mining Resources, avec deux propriétés aurifères dans le camp minier de Cadillac.

On trouve ensuite Maple Gold Mines, dont le projet de Douay couvre 55 kilomètres de découvertes le long du couloir de déforma tion de Casa Berardi. « L’Abitibi est comme une source intarissable de bienfaits », déclarait Matthew Hornor, président et directeur général de la société. « À mesure que l’on fore plus profond, les corps minéralisés sont plus grands et les minerais à plus haute teneur. »

Tournés vers le nord De Chibougamau à la baie James jusqu’au Nunavik, le nord du Québec regorge de potentiel non exploré.

La partie la plus développée de la région se trouve autour de Chibougamau, connue pour sa production de cuivre entre les années 1930 et les années 1960. Aujourd’hui, la région attire de petites sociétés minières spécialisées dans l’or et le cuivre, le nickel, le fer et le vanadium.

La plupart des activités aurifères sont regroupées sur la cein ture de roches vertes de Frotet-Evans, qui a le même âge et le même degré de métamorphisme que l’Abitibi. Si l’Abitibi est exposé à la surface, les minéraux dans la ceinture de FrotetEvans sont enfouis sous 10 à 15 mètres de till.

« Historiquement parlant, la majeure partie du Québec s’est principalement concentrée sur les roches visibles. La ceinture de Frotet-Evans était davantage considérée comme une ceinture de métaux communs qu’une ceinture aurifère », déclarait Justin Reid, directeur général de Troilus Gold Corporation à Global Business Reports. La société s’efforce de relancer la mine de Troi

lus, qui a produit deux millions d’onces (environ 57 tonnes) d’or et près de 70 000 tonnes de cuivre entre 1996 et 2010.

Juste au sud de Troilus se trouve le projet de Kenorland Mine rals et Sumitomo dans la ceinture de Frotet, une découverte impor tante que les techniques modernes ont rendue possible. « Nous avons procédé à un échantillonnage systématique à grande échelle du till. Par conséquent, nous avons échantillonné le till sur une immense superficie et avons recueilli un panache vierge. Nous sommes remontés jusqu’au glacier et avons terminé notre échan tillonnage là où nous pensions que se trouvait la source », expliquait Zach Flood, directeur général de Kenorland. La société a prévu un programme de forage de 25 000 mètres pour janvier 2023.

Au sud de Chibougamau, Doré Copper Mining dispose d’un vaste ensemble de terres hébergeant 13 anciennes mines de cuivre. La société prévoit d’adopter une approche de type « centre et périphérie » pour redévelopper la région. Son concen trateur de Rand, situé dans un rayon de 60 kilomètres des gise ments, servira de centre des activités, et sera alimenté par des projets à mesure que la production commence.

Deux des projets les plus avancés dans la région sont le projet de réhabilitation des friches industrielles de Mont Sorcier de Voyager Metals et le projet éponyme de Métaux BlackRock, qui sera le premier au Québec à développer du vanadium, du titane et de la fonte à graphite sphéroïdal (ou fonte nodulaire). C’est un point important si l’on considère que le vanadium et le titane sont tous deux essentiels à l’économie verte.

Explorer de nouvelles frontières

La région entourant la mine d’Éléonore de Newmont sur le territoire d’Eeyou Istchee Baie-James deviendra le prochain camp minier aurifère de la province. La région s’est initialement ouverte lorsque André Gaumont, attiré par l’accès routier créé par la construction des barrages de La Grande d’Hydro Québec, a découvert de l’or sur le site Éléonore en 2004. Depuis que la pro duction a commencé à la mine, la région attire un flux régulier de petites sociétés minières qui espèrent faire la prochaine grande découverte.« Ildevient de plus en plus difficile de trouver de l’or dans l’Abitibi. Le sol est déjà intégralement jalonné », déclarait PierreOlivier Goulet, vice-président du développement de l’entreprise à Genius Metals, dont la propriété de Sakami Gold de 20 519 hec tares chevauche la même frontière qu’Éléonore entre les sousprovinces géologiques d’Opinaca et de La Grande. « De plus en plus de découvertes vont voir le jour dans la baie James. Nous n’en sommes qu’au début. »

Genius Metals fait partie de la poignée de petites sociétés minières qui ont jalonné des concessions dans la région. Parmi leurs voisins figure la propriété Serpent de Harfang Exploration, dont le conseil d’administration compte André Gaumont parmi sesPlusieursmembres.projets aurifères sont également en développement dans la région. Parmi eux figurent le gisement aurifère de Chee choo de Sirios, et le projet Sakami de Métaux Précieux du Québec (qui, malgré leurs noms similaires, n’est pas le même projet que celui mené par Genius.)

L’un des plus grands détenteurs de titres miniers, Azimut Exploration, peut entamer des projets d’exploration sur un vaste terrain pratiquement inexploré grâce à son approche axée sur les Ledonnées.logiciel d’Azimut, AZtechMine, permet une modélisation prédictive en reliant les données géoscientifiques régionales à

une base de données des minéraux afin de modéliser l’empreinte des ressources minérales non découvertes. Le logiciel associe des données de SIGÉOM, une base de données en ligne à disposition du public que le gouvernement provincial met à jour chaque année, à des données de terrain. Selon Jean-Marc Lulin, directeur général d’Azimut, cette base de données est « exceptionnelle ment solide ».

Si de plus en plus de sociétés utilisent le logiciel pour amélio rer le ciblage, Azimut est reconnue comme une pionnière dans cet espace. De fait, la société utilise cette technologie depuis plus de 15 ans. « Nous avons une validation de principe de cette tech nologie », indiquait M. Lulin. « Elle a mené à la découverte d’envi ron 500 nouvelles zones productives possibles au Québec dans des régions réellement inexplorées, de véritables nouvelles découvertes. »Plusrécemment, ces découvertes comprenaient la zone de Patwon Gold de la propriété Elmer d’Azimut, 80 cibles pour le nickel dans la baie James, et des gisements cuprifères et polymé talliques à fort potentiel à ses propriétés de Rex dans le Nunavik, que la société développe en partenariat stratégique avec SOQUEM.« Nous ne sommes pas les premiers à explorer la région, mais nous avons été les premiers à reconnaître qu’il s’agit d’une nou velle province minérale », expliquait M. Lulin. « La taille de la cible rend le corridor de Rex vraiment unique pour le Québec. »

Un avenir brillant pour les métaux nécessaires à la fabrication de batteries et les terres rares

La transition énergétique mondiale vers une économie à faible intensité de carbone alimente la demande en lithium, gra phite et terres rares. D’après un rapport de 2020 de la Banque mondiale, la croissance anticipée de 2018 à 2050 est de 488 % pour le lithium, 494 % pour le graphite et 231 % pour l’indium.

L’exploration et le développement de ce type de matières pre mières prennent leur envol au Québec. « Nous avons constaté lors du dernier congrès de la Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC, l’association canadienne des prospecteurs et

De l’or, visible à travers l’objectif d’un microscope, dans un trou de forage au projet Douay de Maple Gold Mines.

entrepreneurs) que de nombreuses personnes sont en quête de lithium. Sur le marché, la recherche de lithium est beaucoup plus facilement financée qu’auparavant », indiquait M. Brisson.

SOQUEM développe actuellement Moblan, un projet dédié au lithium à 130 kilomètres de Chibougamau, en partenariat avec Sayona Mining, producteur australien de lithium.

Si de nombreux projets dédiés au lithium sont actuellement en développement dans la province, Sayona a l’intention de deve nir le premier producteur de lithium à partir de roches dures d’Amérique du Nord. La société détient aussi le projet Authier à proximité, dont l’étude de faisabilité est positive. En entreprise commune avec la société américaine Piedmont Lithium, leur objectif est de relancer les activités à la mine de Sayona et le concentrateur à La Corne, dans la région de l’Abitibi. Sayona envisage un investissement d’environ 98 millions de dollars dans le projet, et prévoit de commencer les livraisons de concentré de spodumène entre juillet 2023 et juillet 2024.

D’après Jonathan Lafontaine, responsable du suivi des activi tés d’exploration minière au ministère de l’énergie et des res sources naturelles (MERN), l’exploration du lithium dans la baie James est très prometteuse. « Certaines des découvertes que l’on fait actuellement changent réellement les priorités », indiquaitil, faisant référence à Patriot Battery Metals, qui a récemment publié « des résultats de forage très prometteurs » sur son projet Corvette dans le bassin supérieur de la baie James. « Cette région n’a été explorée que pour l’or et les métaux communs. Personne n’a pensé au lithium, et pourtant, il y en a. »

Également à la baie James, Winsome Resources, une nouvelle société australienne, dirige trois projets. Elle espère découvrir des ressources non exploitées à son projet phare de Cancet en début d’année prochaine.

« Les investisseurs canadiens hésitent encore beaucoup à se lancer dans le lithium », déclarait Chris Evans, directeur général

de Winsome, qui a construit et mis en activité la mine de lithium et l’installation de traitement de Pilgangoora en Australie-Occi dentale en 2017. « Au Québec, on se retrouve face à une situation que l’on a connue en Australie-Occidentale il y a quelque temps. C’est une terre pleine de promesses. De nombreux projets doivent encore être construits, et l’expertise à investir dans ces projets n’est pas encore totalement maîtrisée. »

La construction au projet de Matawanie de Nouveau Monde Graphite, dans le sud de la province, est sur le point de commencer. La société s’est engagée à construire une mine entièrement élec trique, et elle prévoit de commencer les activités ainsi que le trai tement à son installation de Bécancour d’ici la fin de l’année 2023.

Lomiko Metals fait partie des sociétés menant des activités d’exploration pour les métaux nécessaires à la construction de batteries. D’après un rapport de 2021 sur l’évaluation écono mique préliminaire (ÉÉP), son projet de La Loutre dans les Lau rentides promet de donner naissance à une mine à ciel ouvert ayant une durée de vie de 14,7 années, et une production sur la durée de vie totale de la mine de 1,4 million de tonnes de concen tré de graphite. Lomiko commence son étude de préfaisabilité pour le projet, et prévoit de publier une estimation révisée des ressources

L’explorationdébut 2023.pourles terres rares prend aussi de la vitesse au Québec, surtout dans le Nord. « On en a trouvé dans la fosse du Labrador », indiquait M. Lafontaine. « Et cela n’inclut pas tous les indices affleurants de terres rares près de la péninsule d’Ungava dans le Nunavik. »

Il fait référence au gisement d’Ashram à dominance de mona zite de Commerce Resource Corp., le plus grand gisement de roches dures à monazite défini en Amérique du Nord, ainsi qu’à Crater Lake, le projet en développement d’Imperial Mining Group dédié au scandium et aux terres rares, et au projet de Strange Lake de Torngat Metals, qui constitue l’une des plus grandes res sources minérales de terres rares (légères et lourdes) au monde.

Certains projets avancés sont également en cours dans la région de la Côte-Nord. SOQUEM dirige Kwyjibo, une découverte de 1993 à l’étape du développement, et Vital Metals, qui détient le projet Nechalacho de Cheetah Resources (la première mine pro duisant des éléments des terres rares au Canada), a dernière ment acheté les projets Kipawa et Zeus de terres rares lourdes. Développer l’exploration et l’extraction des métaux communs

L’Abitibi connaît une forte activité d’exploration pour le nic kel, et une activité moyenne dans le nord du Québec « qui n’est toutefois pas aussi forte que celle de l’Abitibi, et ne compte que quelques acteurs », indiquait M. Brisson. « L’intérêt se dévelop pera si l’on fait de nouvelles découvertes. C’est assez récent, et cela s’explique par la hausse du prix des matières premières et des activités d’exploration dans le Nord. »

Parmi les projets en cours dans l’Abitibi, citons le projet Gras set de 73 900 hectares de Wallbridge Minings, une découverte de nickel-cuivre-éléments du groupe du platine (ÉGP) à environ 50 kilomètres de Matagami sur des terres qui ont été explorées pour la première fois dans les années 1950.

Au Nunavik, Orford Mining Corporation développe un projet de nickel en phase avancée sur sa propriété de West Raglan dans la ceinture de Cape Smith. Cette ceinture abrite deux mines en exploitation dans la région, le projet Nunavik Nickel et la mine Raglan de Glencore. Parmi les autres projets en phase avancée

figure le projet Hawk Ridge de Nickel North Exploration, une res source minérale de cuivre-nickel-ÉGP. Dans le cadre des premiers efforts d’exploration, Midland Exploration a établi une alliance stratégique avec BHP sur un programme d’exploration majeur dans la « Dansrégion.lapartie la plus au nord de la province, près de l’océan Arctique, ce genre de gisements de métaux communs présentent un fort potentiel », déclarait M. Brisson. « Dans l’arrière-pays, la situation est plus complexe car il n’y a pas d’infrastructure, juste un désert de roches et de lacs. »

M. Lafontaine indique que la Côte-Nord est également riche en nickel. « Les extensions de ces zones géologiques contenant du minerai dans la fosse du Labrador renferment aussi des panaches et des gisements exceptionnels », indiquait-il. « Des activités d’ex ploration sont en cours pour essayer de déterminer si ces gise ments à grande valeur peuvent être extraits par ces sociétés. »

L’une de ses sociétés, Murchison Metals, dirige un projet de nickel-cuivre-cobalt dans le Haut-Plateau de la Manicouagan (HPM). Elle occupe une position foncière dominante de 57 600 hectares qui lui permettra d’y établir un camp minier.

Le Québec entretient une relation de longue date avec le cuivre. En effet, les premiers registres de la colonie de la Nou velle-France font état de gisements de cuivre sur la Côte-Nord, attribués au neveu de Jacques Cartier par le roi Louis XV de France. Toutefois, aucune mine n’exploite aujourd’hui le cuivre comme produit principal, même s’il constitue un produit dérivé pour de nombreuses exploitations d’or, de nickel et de zinc.

Aujourd’hui, de nombreuses sociétés, dont Doré Copper, mènent des projets de réhabilitation de friches industrielles dans l’Abitibi, et d’autres s’intéressent à de nouveaux gisements sur la Côte-Nord.« Ontrouve des panaches prometteurs pour le cuivre dans la province de Grenville. Tout le monde part du principe que ce ter rain était fortement métamorphique. Pourtant, les sociétés sont allées sur le terrain et ont trouvé son potentiel », indiquait M. Lafontaine.D’après M. Brisson, le portefeuille de SOQUEM compte plu sieurs propriétés de cuivre-zinc dans l’Abitibi. La société se concentre actuellement sur B26-Broullan, un projet d’argentcuivre-zinc à 90 kilomètres à l’ouest de Matagami.

« Cette zone a été développée par Glencore. Elle y extrayait du zinc, du cuivre et de l’or depuis les années 1950. En juin dernier, elle a terminé l’extraction à sa dernière mine. Le concentrateur attend donc du nouveau minerai et nous avons décidé d’aider », expliquait-il.

Surmonter les incertitudes

Malgré un bref ralentissement économique en 2020 en raison de la pandémie de COVID-19 et des conditions de marché diffi ciles pendant la majeure partie de 2022, l’exploration au Québec se poursuit à un rythme soutenu.

« Les financements ont ralenti, mais les sociétés ont suffisam ment de capital pour poursuivre leurs activités. Les programmes d’exploration progressent », déclarait Paul Carmel, président et directeur général de SIDEX.

D’après Ressources naturelles Canada (RNCan), le Québec était en 2021 le principal territoire minier du Canada, avec 964 millions de dollars en dépenses d’exploration et en activités de mise en valeur de gisements, qui représentaient 26 % des dépenses totales d’exploration et de développement au Canada. D’après l’ISQ, les dépenses d’exploration à elles seules représentaient 522 millions

de dollars dans la province. Ces dépenses n’ont jamais été aussi élevées ces dix dernières années. Elles marquaient une reprise importante depuis 2020, lorsque les prix des matières premières et l’impact de la COVID-19 sur les exploitations avaient entraîné une baisse des dépenses à 341 millions de dollars.

Toutefois, M. Carmel observe une accalmie de l’activité sur le terrain. « Les sociétés semblent avoir ralenti leurs efforts d’ex ploration pour diverses raisons », indiquait-il, évoquant des retards sur le site et dans les laboratoires de dosage en raison de la pandémie et de la pénurie de main-d’œuvre qualifiée à l’échelle mondiale.« Cedont nous avons besoin aujourd’hui, c’est d’une grande découverte », indiquait-il. « L’histoire nous a montré que c’est le plus grand catalyseur de changement. »

Malgré la menace pesante d’une récession, M. Savard reste confiant dans l’avenir, qu’il voit prometteur. « On assiste au retour des petites, mais aussi des grandes sociétés minières au Québec. Rio Tinto et BHP sont de retour et font équipe dans la recherche d’or, mais aussi de nickel et de métaux et minéraux stratégiques », indiquait-il. « Elles se rendent compte du poten tiel exceptionnel de la région, mais savent aussi que le monde tra verse une période d’incertitude. Par conséquent, les sociétés minières s’intéressent davantage aux territoires miniers sûrs. »

Les derniers chiffres provinciaux montrent que les titres miniers d’exploration sont en hausse. « Nous n’avons pas vu de tels chiffres depuis le boom des années 2010 », indiquait M. Lafontaine. Il ajoutait qu’à la fin du mois de juillet, plus de 215 000 titres miniers étaient actifs dans la province, soit une hausse de 9 % depuis les derniers chiffres communiqués par la province en 2021.

Des projets d’exploration pour le zinc, le niobium, l’apatite et, plus récemment, les diamants sont aussi en cours au Québec.

« Des activités d’exploration ont lieu dans beaucoup d’endroits, et les résultats sont absolument surprenants », déclarait M. Lafon taine. « Plusieurs centaines de projets d’exploration pourraient finir par montrer un potentiel d’extraction rentable. » ICM

James Bay attire des sociétés d’exploration dont Winsome Resources et son projet Cancet.

Après une décennie de la

Greenstone tire parti de la philosophie du bon voisinage

Par Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

Lorsqu’il sera totalement construit et entrera en service dans le courant du premier semestre 2024, le projet d’ex traction aurifère de Greenstone, situé dans le nord-ouest de l’Ontario (un partenariat à 60 % - 40 % entre Equinox Gold et Orion Mine Finance Group) deviendra l’une des plus grandes mines d’or du Canada.

Le projet est situé dans la municipalité de Greenstone, à envi ron 250 kilomètres au nord-est de Thunder Bay, une région qui abritait de nombreuses mines souterraines des années 1930 aux années 1970. D’une valeur estimée à 1,225 milliard de dollars américains, ce projet devrait produire en moyenne 366 000 onces (environ 10 376 kilogrammes) d’or chaque année, sur une durée de vie de 14 ans. Les coûts nécessaires au maintien de la produc tion sont estimés à 618 dollars américains l’once, ce qui le place dans le tiers inférieur de la moyenne de l’industrie.

La construction à Greenstone a officiellement commencé en octobre 2021, mais le projet est en préparation depuis près d’une décennie.

En 2014, lorsque Premier Gold Mines, son propriétaire de l’époque, a pour la première fois évoqué ses plans, il a rencontré des difficultés complexes que ses prédécesseurs, dont les mines de Hardrock, de MacLeod-Cockshutt et de Mosher qui ont contribué à l’établissement des communautés environnantes, n’auraient jamais pu envisager dans les années 1930.

L’un des problèmes évidents est que la zone potentielle du projet était pour la majeure partie déjà occupée. Sur les terres se trouvaient déjà un terrain de golf, 65 habitations, un grand site pittoresque aimé de tous qui commémore l’histoire minière de la région, une portion de 5,4 kilomètres de l’autoroute 11, et d’autres infrastructures essentielles, notamment le poste de l’Ontario Provincial Police [OPP, la police provinciale de l’Onta rio], un dépôt de la patrouille du ministère des transports de l’Ontario, ainsi qu’un poste électrique et des lignes de distribu tion d’Hydro One.

Le lieu choisi pour la future mine se trouve sur les territoires traditionnels de quatre Premières Nations (les Animbiigoo Zaa

gi’igan Anishinaabek, les Aroland, les Ginoogaming et les Long Lake #58), ce qui constitue un autre problème majeur. La construction et l’exploitation de la mine affecteraient également la nation métisse de l’Ontario.

Par ailleurs, le réseau électrique existant qui alimente les habitants et les entreprises de la région ne pourrait pas répondre aux besoins futurs du projet. Greenstone devra par conséquent construire une nouvelle centrale électrique et un gazoduc de 14 kilomètres pour relier le projet au gazoduc du réseau de TC Énergie au Canada.

Son ampleur n’est pas le seul aspect qui en fait un projet notable. Tout au long de son développement, certaines des diffi cultés apparentes sont devenues ses forces et ses avantages.

Relocalisation

Le projet devait absolument faire l’objet de négociations concer nant l’acquisition des terres et les relocalisations, expliquait Eric Lamontagne, directeur général de Greenstone, « mais cela a été dif ficile ». M. Lamontagne, qui a rejoint la société en 2013 (l’année où ont commencé les négociations), indiquait qu’il a fallu un peu plus de temps que prévu pour finaliser la phase de négociations (qui s’est terminée en 2018) que ce qu’il faudra pour construire la mine.

La communauté a beaucoup soutenu le projet et les avantages économiques qu’il engendrera, notamment les 500 emplois à temps complet prévus une fois que la mine ouvrira ses portes. Toutefois, Greenstone a reconnu que, pour les personnes contraintes d’abandonner leurs foyers pour laisser place à la mine, le sentiment de perte sera intense et prendra un certain temps à être accepté. La plupart des propriétaires sont des per sonnes âgées qui cherchent un logement plus petit, ce qui facilite les négociations avec Greenstone, mais d’autres sont de jeunes familles. « C’était un peu plus difficile pour eux », déclarait M. Lamontagne. « C’est pourquoi nous les avons rencontrés et avons pris le temps nécessaire pour nous assurer de trouver une solution satisfaisante pour les dédommager et respecter le pro cessus. Nous n’avons ni pressé ni expulsé ces personnes, ce qui était très important. Nous avons été respectueux. »

Parmi les foyers, 65 faisaient partie d’un quartier de Gerald ton. La ville comptait aussi un terrain de golf à 18 trous qui avait été construit en deux étapes sur 50 ans pour la main-d’œuvre de la mine désormais fermée de Little Long Lac. Cette mine avait ouvert ses portes en 1935 et c’est de là qu’est née Geraldton. Neuf des trous du terrain de golf étaient situés sur le périmètre de construction de la nouvelle portion de l’autoroute.

Le gouvernement local municipal, propriétaire du terrain de golf, a voté en faveur de la vente des neuf trous à Greenstone, ainsi que du chevalement de l’ancienne mine de MacLeod-Cock shutt qui tenait lieu de monument commémoratif de l’histoire minière de la région. Greenstone a ôté et récupéré la partie supé rieure du chevalement en prévision de sa relocalisation vers un nouveau site commémoratif, lequel sera déterminé en accord avec la communauté.

Communautés autochtones

Lorsque la Première Nation de Long Lake #58, dont les reven dications territoriales n’ont toujours pas été résolues, a entendu des rumeurs selon lesquelles un projet minier allait être construit sur leurs terres traditionnelles, la communauté a réagi rapidement, déclarait Judy Desmoulin, cheffe de la Première Nation. « Plutôt que de rester en marge, nous nous sommes immédiatement impliqués. »

Sa Première Nation a signé un protocole d’entente en 2014 et est parvenue à une entente finale avec Greenstone en 2018.

« Pour cette entente, nous ne voulions pas seulement la garan tie classique des emplois », indiquait la cheffe Desmoulin. « Ça n'aurait pas été assez. C'est bon pour certains individus, mais nous voulions que l’ensemble de la communauté en profite. »

L’objectif de Greenstone et des communautés autochtones, qui ont toutes approuvé le projet, était d’établir une relation et un partenariat positifs sur le long terme. Historiquement, les communautés autochtones à court de ressources trouvent tou jours difficile de négocier avec les sociétés minières qui ont un accès bien supérieur à l’expertise. Dans ce cas, expliquait la cheffe Desmoulin, « c’était, pour ainsi dire, une situation équi table ». Elle expliquait que Greenstone « octroyait un finance ment suffisant nous permettant d’être sûrs que la transaction allait être satisfaisante pour nous et que nous disposons des fonds suffisants pour embaucher nos experts et couvrir tous les imprévus. En soi, ce processus était bon et meilleur. Nous avons aussi bénéficié d’un très bon conseiller ».

D’après M. Lamontagne, la voie vers la réussite des négo ciations passait par l’écoute, le respect et les compromis. « J’ai participé à toutes ces négociations depuis le début. Pour les deux parties, ce sur quoi nous avons commencé et ce que nous avons fini par accepter était différent », indiquait-il. « Nous nous sommes écoutés mutuellement, nous avons avancé et avons accepté des compromis pour trouver un com munLesaccord. »partenariats se sont traduits par un certain nombre d’ini tiatives qui renforcent la relation. Par exemple, un membre de chacune des Premières Nations et un de la communauté métisse locale font partie de l’équipe de techniciens, dont le travail est d’assurer la surveillance de l’environnement. Cette surveillance inclut des essais sur les eaux de surface et souterraines, l’air et les sols, ainsi que des contrôles de la santé de la vie aquatique et terrestre afin de régulièrement rendre des comptes au gouver nement et aux communautés. Une fois par semaine, l’équipe par

Cahier des charges

Flux net de trésorerie du projet avant milliards imposition (sur la durée de vie du projet)

Valeur actualisée nette du projet avant imposition (à un taux d’actualisation de 5 %) USD

Taux de rendement interne avant imposition 24,7 %

Durée de vie de la mine 13,7 ans

Production d’or moyenne 366 000 onces par an Récupération d’or moyenne 91,2 %

Coûts nécessaires au maintien 803 USD par once de la Dépenseproductionenimmobilisations

initiales 1,225 milliardsUSD

L’ensemble des données chiffrées sont tirées de la mise à jour de l’étude de faisabilité préparée conformément au règlement NI-43-101 du 26 janvier 2021, mis à part les dépenses en immobilisations initiales, qui ont été mises à jour en octobre 2021.

Quatre tombereaux de transport de modèle CAT 793 de 250 tonnes et une excavatrice Komatsu de modèle PC-5500 sont prêts à être assemblés.

tageait ses résultats avec la communauté. « Ils sont impliqués et la procédure est totalement transparente », indiquait M. Lamon tagne. « Auparavant, la mine aurait procédé à l’échantillonnage et l’autre partie aurait essayé de consulter les données, qui n’au raient pas toujours été partagées dans leur intégralité. »

Les communautés autochtones ont aussi négocié un traite ment préférentiel pour les contrats. « Nous avons décroché le contrat pour construire et exploiter le camp, et le contrat pour alimenter la mine en carburant », expliquait la cheffe Desmoulin. Avec la nouvelle société d’avitaillement en carburant, « nous avons désormais notre propre infrastructure pour notre propre équipement, entreposé sur nos terres », indiquait-elle. « Nous cherchons à élargir ces services d’avitaillement afin de pouvoir les offrir à d’autres au-delà de la mine. »

Les Premières Nations élaborent un programme de formation culturelle obligatoire afin d’aider les employés tout autant que les entrepreneurs ou l’équipe de direction à comprendre l’his toire et la culture des Premières Nations, et ce qu’ils ont enduré. « Quand le gouvernement parle de réconciliation », expliquait la cheffe Desmoulin, « c’est le genre d’informations que nous sommes en mesure de transmettre avec cette entente ».

Initialement, la cheffe Desmoulin indiquait que la direction de Greenstone ne comprenait pas la raison pour laquelle les Pre mières Nations souhaitaient être directement impliquées dans les questions et les conflits liés aux ressources humaines. Dans le passé, expliquait-elle, quand des membres des Premières Nations étaient victimes de harcèlement ou de racisme, ils ne pouvaient souvent rien faire. « Nous apprenons à nous serrer les coudes », déclarait-elle. « Nous n’allons plus laisser ce genre de choses atroces se produire ou arriver à nos proches. »

Par ailleurs, outre les ententes, Greenstone a proposé que le nouveau poste de l’OPP soit relocalisé sur les terres des Pre mières Nations. Les quatre Premières Nations collaborent égale ment avec Greenstone pour installer un nouveau panneau solaire de 10 mégawatts qui compensera certains des besoins en électricité par de l’énergie verte. Ces discussions sont en cours.

Construction

En juillet cette année, 900 travailleurs en moyenne se trou vaient sur le site pour la phase de construction du projet, qui

comprend la construction d’une nouvelle infrastructure ainsi que de nouvelles installations minières et d’une mine à ciel ouvert de 1,8 kilomètre de long, 1 kilomètre de large et 600 mètres de profondeur. À l’heure où nous mettons sous presse, plus de 35 % de la construction du projet est terminée.

« La construction est partout », déclarait M. Lamontagne. « Tout le monde est très enthousiaste. »

Greenstone s’attend à ce que la majeure partie des bâtiments de la mine soient construits et clôturés avant l’hiver, ce qui per mettra aux travailleurs de progresser sur les installations internes pendant les mois d’hiver. Quatre tombereaux de trans port de modèle CAT 793 de 250 tonnes et une excavatrice Komatsu de modèle PC-5500 sont arrivés sur le site cet été pour l’assemblage. D’ici septembre, Greenstone espère commencer la préproduction. Avec un coefficient de recouvrement de 5:1, le projet générera une quantité considérable de stériles. Toutefois, Greenstone en utilisera certains pour construire la route d’accès et l’installation de stockage des résidus. Le minerai sera empilé pour donner à la mine en service une avance sur la production d’orBerthoen 2024.Caron, directeur technique et de la production de Greenstone, indiquait que 98 % des aspects techniques du projet étaient terminés depuis juillet. L’étude de faisabilité est achevée. Techniquement, la plupart des concepts du projet ont été finali sés il y a environ 6 ans et ont été soumis à plusieurs évaluations, notamment par des tiers et des vérificateurs lorsque la pro priété a changé de propriétaires au fil des ans. L’une des caracté ristiques techniques quelque peu inhabituelles du projet est que sa mine à ciel ouvert incorporera des mines historiques souter raines. La société ne considère toutefois pas cela comme un obs tacle. « Il existe de nombreuses procédures pour faire cette intégration en toute sécurité », indiquait M. Caron. « Nous n’avons pas besoin de réinventer la roue. »

Les débris métalliques abandonnés dans les anciennes mines souterraines de Hardrock, MacLeod-Cockshutt et Mosher pour raient toutefois poser problème. De même, plutôt que d’opter pour un broyeur semi-autogène (broyeur SAG) classique, Greenstone a choisi un circuit équipé de cylindres de broyage à haute pression (HPGR, de l’anglais high pressure grinding rolls) fabriqué par le Weir Group. Or, s’ils ont un meilleur rendement

Tonnes (t)

énergétique que la technologie plus classique, les HPGR sont susceptibles d’endommager les débris métalliques des mines historiques. « Nous avons récemment ajouté davantage de redondance dans le système afin d’éliminer le plus tôt possible les déchets dans le circuit », indiquait M. Caron.

Des faiblesses aux forces

L’année dernière, Equinox Gold a acquis une participation de 60 % dans le projet pour la somme de 612 millions de dollars. Or, au lieu d’assister aux complications associées à la relocalisation et aux difficultés à établir un permis d’exploitation social positif, la société a vu le fruit des forces développées par Greenstone au fil des ans au travers de son travail acharné et de son écoute, de ses compromis et de son respect.

« Rares sont les occasions d’acquérir des participations dans les capitaux propres de projets de qualité dans des provinces favorables à l’exploitation minière », déclarait Peter Hardie, directeur des finances à Equinox Gold. « Greenstone est l’une des plus grandes mines d’or non développées au Canada. Une fois sa construction achevée, elle sera la quatrième plus grande mine d’or au Canada produisant de l’or à bas prix. En outre, elle a obtenu son permis et est prête à démarrer. Le projet bénéficie d’un excellent soutien de la communauté et des Autochtones, d’un partenaire financier solide avec Orion Mine Finance et d’une occasion de consolider une participation majoritaire à une valorisation intéressante, avec une équipe de premier ordre déjà existante. L’association de tous ces facteurs est plus que rare. Lorsque l’occasion de l’acquérir s’est présentée, nous n’avons pas hésité. »  ICM

L’ensemble des données chiffrées sont tirées de la mise à jour de l’étude de faisabilité préparée conformément au règlement NI-43-101 du 26 janvier 2021.

LE PROGRAMME

Le programme des éminents conférenciers est offert à 31 branches de l'ICM, 11 sociétés techniques et 8 sections d'étudiants. Les universités peuvent également demander une Leconférence.programme a débuté en 1968 eet comprend une liste d’individus qui, depuis près de 50 ans, partagent leurs connaissances avec la communauté minière. Chaque année, les conférenciers sont élus par leurs pairs dans le cadre du programme des prix de l'ICM et détiennent le titre pour une saison complète (septembre à juin).

L'ICM a le privilège de compter parmi ses conférenciers plus de 260 des professionnels les plus chevronnés de l’industrie. La devise « Qui a été conférencier le restera à jamais » illustre notre fierté et le dévouement dont nous faisons preuve pour veiller à ce que l’apprentissage soit un processus intarissable ; ainsi, une liste complète des anciens conférenciers vous est proposée sur notre site Internet www.cim.org, et vous permettra de tirer pleinement profit du réservoir de compétences en perpétuelle évolution offert par le programme.

Fier commanditaire depuis 1972, la fondation de l’ICM (FICM), permet au programme des éminents conférenciers de l’ICM de mettre en relation les membres de l’ICM dotés d’une expertise de premier plan dans Lel’industrie.programme des éminents conférenciers est détenu et géré par l'Institut canadien des mines, de la métallurgie et du pétrole (ICM).

CIM Journal CIM Vol. No.

GeologicalGEOLOGY boundary modeling with uncertainty using an indicator interpolated threshold approach

S. A. Mancell and C. V. Deutsch, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Estimating the quality and quantity of minerals is an important step in evaluating the feasibility of a min ing project. Before estimation of resources occurs, the domain extents must be defined. Uncertainty in the placement of boundaries is ubiquitous, and proper evaluation of uncertainty is integral to aiding sub sequent engineering decisions. Implicit modeling of boundaries is a popular technique as it is data driven, fast, and automatic. Signed distance functions (SDF) are commonly used in implicit boundary modeling. The SDF in its basic form is the signed-dependent shortest Euclidean distance between data that are not of the same category. However, in the presence of spatial-data asymmetry, the SDF introduces a conservative bias leading to lower global tonnages for estimating resources. Moreover, uncertainty through an additive constant to the SDF results in homogenous and unreasonable uncertainty. A novel approach to implicit boundary modeling with uncertainty is to interpolate a field of probabilities from indicator data and threshold the estimate for boundary extraction. Uncertainty is captured by varying the indicator thresholds, which provides eroded and dilated boundaries. The result is a globally unbiased boundary model that closely follows the structure of the conditioning data and provides a realistic uncertainty bandwidth.

SURFACE

Uncertainty-basedMINING mine planning framework for oil sands production scheduling and waste management

A.Maremi, Mining Optimization Laboratory (MOL), Bharti School of Engineering, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Canada; E. Ben-Awuah, IAMGOLD Research Fellow, MIRARCO Research Associate, Mining Optimization Laboratory (MOL), Bharti School of Engineering Laurentian University, Sudbury, Canada

In oil sands mining, the production schedule must be integrated simultaneously with in-pit and ex-pit dike construction scheduling. Any extra mined ore is stockpiled for a limited duration, and the topmost layer of the overburden is used for land reclamation. An uncertainty-based math ematical programming model is developed based on mixed integer linear goal programming for oil sands production scheduling and waste management. The model aims to maximize the net present value (NPV) while meeting all required production and technical constraints. The reclamation strategy for the stockpiled ore and the destination of dike materials is determined to minimize costs. The model uses kriged esti mates with a variance penalty scheme to minimize the financial risk from grade uncertainty associated with the production schedule. The uncertainty-based model is implemented for an oil sands mine case study with two scenarios. An integrated mine plan with a waste manage ment and stockpiling strategy is generated by Scenario 1 that maximizes the NPV of the operation and minimizes dike construction and reclamation cost. Scenario 2 uses the variance penalty scheme to estimate the production schedule financial risk from grade uncertainty

CLOSING SHOT

Home away from home

This was our camp setup for a team of four for the Koocanusa Project (Aeonian Resources). We had a camper to cook in, and a tent for sleeping, then pitched the awning and lights so we could work on writing up our f ield notes into the evening. I love the comfy feel we had in this setup lots of laughs, a ton of science happening and a plethora of memories made!

Andy Randell, PGeo. CEO/Principal Geoscientist, SGDS Hive

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