Power outage puts Porcupine on hold

Vancouver A widespread power outage has forced partners Placer Dome (PDG-T) and Kinross Gold (K-T) to stop producing gold from the Porcupine joint venture mines near Timmins, Ontario.

The power outage in Ontario and the northeast U.S. hit the Dome and Hoyle Pond mine sites Thursday afternoon and despite having diesel generators for emergency backup power, gold production is halted. It is uncertain when power will resume but the companies believe that the lost production can be made up later in the year.

Placer’s share of production in the second quarter of 2003 for the Porcupine Joint Venture was 7% higher than the prior year period due to higher-grade ore from the Hoyle Pond mine. Cash costs per ounce were positively impacted by the increase in production partially offset by higher energy costs and the stronger Canadian dollar. The majors share of output came in at 62,400 oz in the quarter.

Placer operates the mines and holds a 51% interest, while Kinross holds 49%.

The world’s third-largest nickel producer, also felt the impact of the big power outage.

Falconbridge (FL-T) shut down its Kidd Creek mine facilities in Timmins and knocked out operations at its nickel mine and smelter in Sudbury.

The major aims to resume operations once power has been restored and stabilized but stated that it would take between 36 hours to 40 hours after that to restart its metallurgical operations.

Falconbridge produces around 27,000 tonnes of nickel yearly from the Sudbury mines and about 145,000 tonnes of copper from the Kidd Creek operations.

All the workers from all the operations were safely evacuated.