Wes Carson, manager of operations development at the mine, and Christy Smith, superintendent of community affairs, spoke to a crowd at the Nak’albun Elementary School to get the latest update from Mt. Milligan.
The presentation included a refresher on how the mine will work, where the mine construction is at, information on how to apply for jobs as well as a video showing “a day in the life” working at the mine.
The copper-gold deposit will be mined in two separate pits with a projected haul of 480 million tonnes of low-grade ore, which will still produce a lot of metal at that volume.
Carson said there will be an estimated six million ounces of gold and 2.1 billion pounds of copper mined from the site.
“At current prices, that makes you a little bit of money,” said Carson with a smile.
He emphasized the potential for the mine to expand beyond the expected mine term if they continue to find additional deposits.
Of the 55 permits required to actually begin operations, they have so far secured 50 of them, and expect the last five to be in place by November of this year.
In terms of construction and employment, the project is up to a workforce of 500 people, with about 350 of those on the site itself, and about 150 working in the design office in Vancouver.
Most of the 350 people working on site are staying in the camp now, which has a capacity of 650. They expect the camp to be at full capacity by September or October of this year.
The construction is about 10 per cent complete now, and the engineering design is about 50 per cent complete with the remainder being the detail work of the wiring and plumbing, etc.
Procurements of equipment have begun, with $132 million in mining equipment awarded to Caterpillar last December. The mining fleet is expected to be starting up in the second quarter of next year to start stripping the open pit and exposing the ore so it is ready to feed into the plant when it starts operating in mid 2013.
The operations team itself is expected to get started within the next eight months. Their goal is a “mutually beneficial relationship with the community,” said Smith, which appears to relate mostly to employment at this stage.
When asked if the mine would be sponsoring any facilities within the communities to help attract or retain human resources, Carson said “one of the things we’re looking at right now is housing ... we do intend in investing in communities, how we actually do that we haven’t decided yet.”
The plan to close the camp after the construction stage is still the goal, according to Carson.
Ruth Lloyd