Thursday, December 27, 2001 - last updated
NEWS
Mining activity to be brisk in 2002
Large and small mining operations will invest heavily in exploration in new year
By Bob Vaillancourt/THE SUDBURY STAR
The Sudbury basin will continue to be one of the country’s busiest mining camps in 2002, say industry insiders.
With millions of dollars planned for mineral exploration by both large and small firms, the “Sudbury basin will see a lot of activity, there is no question about it,” said nickel market analyst Terry Orstlan of Orstlan and Associates of Montreal.
Both Inco and Falconbridge will continue their ongoing exploration efforts with both looking at expenditures that could top more than $10 million each.
Also active is Walden-based Wallbridge Mining which is planning to spend $6 million, much of it to further work on its Windy Lake property. The company is looking to do some drilling this winter to see what is there and to what extent.
“We are keen on Sudbury. We think it is one of the very best addresses for mining in the world,” said Wallbridge president Wayne Whymark.
Some of the expenditures planned by Inco will go to further developing finds the company has made at Kelley Lake and at the Totten mine site, said company spokesman Cory McPhee. The company will also continue work on an expansion of the McCreedy East ore body and a deepening of the Creighton mine.
At Falconbridge work is continuing on a discovery the company announced late this year near the Sudbury airport.
Michael Welch, manager of geology at Falconbridge, said the company is looking to spend about $8 million on exploration in 2002.
Not all of the exploration money is being spent on what is called green field exploration. Some is going into a re-examination of existing ore bodies.
Fort Knox Resources reached a deal earlier this year with Inco that will see the Toronto-based company take a look at a number of Inco’s abandoned properties for platinum group metals.
The properties hold the potential for significant copper, nickel and platinum group metal (PGM) finds, and Fort Knox is willing to spend the money to discover what that potential means, said Terry MacGibbon, Fort Knox president and chief executive officer.
The company is looking to spend as much as $14 million over the next year and a half and a total of about $30 million over a four-year period.
At Falconbridge, the new year will be the first year for the company’s new strategic plan, said Welch. That plan involves a new way of looking at exploration in the Sudbury basin.
“In the past we have been looking for the elephants, flagship operations. We’ve always had something that we could bring online that carried a lot of big tonnage with it and lots of production and a lower cost per ton.”
But the company believes that is no longer possible, he said. “The one deposit we did have that would have been able to fill that gap is Onaping depth, but unfortunately at this point in time, it is just too deep for us to mine.”
What that means for the company, said Welch, is “we have to explore for a different size and a different grade of ore.”
Welch said he believes the ore discoveries of the future will be smaller, but richer ore bodies.
“On the south range the huge mineralized complexes have been known for a long time. Frood Stobie, Creighton, Copper Cliff, those are just huge mineralized complexes. I doubt that there is any more of those left, so more than likely what we will find above 2,000 metres will be the three to eight million tonne ore bodies and they require a little more work.”
Orstlan agrees the large ore bodies have been discovered, but believes there are plenty of smaller finds to be made.
“I think it is going to be very selective discoveries. There are going to be isolated ore bodies,” he said.
Whymark is also in agreement. “We think there is tremendous potential here. If you look at what has been found just in the last few years it is tremendous. We believe there is a lot more to be found. I don’t think the end is anywhere near in sight here.”
That will mean economics will play a part in bringing those finds to production.
Platinum group metals, which had been commanding prices as high as $1,000 a pound at one point last year, have dropped considerably in the wake of the World Trade Centre attack.
But Orstlan believes prices for all base metals have bottomed out and will start a recovery in the new year. “We have seen the worst of the recession already. The big damage has been done.”
While demand dropped in 2001, he sees it rising again in 2002, around the world. China, which produced very little of its own nickel is expected to be a big consumer in 2002, said Orstlan. |
