|
|
De Beers to Flood Snap Lake Mine
Dec 27, 2016 4:17 AM
By Rapaport News
|
|
|
RAPAPORT... De Beers said it will start flooding its Snap Lake mine in
Canada and cease its involvement in an exploration quest in Saskatchewan.
The miner will begin flooding the site in Canada’s
Northwest Territories in January after receiving regulatory approval earlier
this year. This comes after the company attempted to sell the mine but failed
to reach an agreement with potential buyers, it said.
De Beers said it plans to preserve the Snap Lake resource until market
conditions and technical methods improve such that it can operate the mine more
economically. The program of extended care and maintenance will preserve the
ore body’s long term viability and reduce costs while minimizing the
environmental impact of keeping Snap Lake dormant, it added.
De Beers will run a program in the first quarter of 2017 to
remove some inventory and equipment and bring fuel supplies. Once flooding is
complete, the workforce required at the mine will be reduced to 35 from the 55
currently employed, with displaced staff considered for jobs at other De Beers
operations.
Separately, De Beers pulled out of a joint venture with
CanAlaska Uranium to explore for diamonds at Western Athabasca in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. A drilling program undertaken by De Beers in
September found seven anomalies were “most likely associated with magnetic
minerals within organic material in the overburden,” CanAlaska reported.
Even so, the currently underexplored Western Athabasca is
still worth probing for diamonds, argued CanAlaska president Peter Dasler. The
company will now concentrate on another 78 targets that it does not believe are
related to magnetic organic material and expects there will be other third parties willing to participate
in tests.
The diamond hunt was set to cost De Beers up to $15.1
million (CAD 20.4 million)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tags:
Canada, CanAlaska Uranium, De Beers, exploration, mining, northwest territories, Peter Dasler, Rapaport News, Saskatchewan, Snap Lake, Western Athabasca
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|