INDUSTRIAL MINERALS — Non-metallics making money coast to coast

Northern Miner Staff

Often overshadowed by metals and hydrocarbons, the industrial minerals sector was a $3-billion business in 1997, providing about 15% of the value of Canada’s mineral production. Add in structural materials like sand and gravel — another $3 billion last year — and the importance sinks in. Industrial minerals may not sparkle, but they make the cash register ring.

British Columbia

British Columbia is a relatively young province still in the throes of a population boom, which helps explain why aggregates continue to be the most important industrial mineral (by value and volume) produced there.

Even so, industrial minerals make up only about 10% of the combined value of minerals, coal, petroleum and natural gas production. After aggregates, the most important industrial minerals (by value) are magnesite, clay products, limestone, barite, sulphur, white calcium carbonate, gypsum, silica and magnetite.

Since the late 1800s, B.C. has been the main limestone supplier in the Pacific Northwest. Two production sites on Texada Island ship between 4 million and 5 million tonnes of limestone annually to lime and cement plants along the Pacific Coast, from northern California to Alaska. In the interior, quarries at Pavilion Lake and Kamloops supply local lime and cement plants.

Close to 1 million tonnes of sulphur are produced at five sites throughout the province, while two production sites in the southeast supply almost all the 500,000 tonnes of gypsum mined in B.C.

A high-purity magnesite deposit, Mount Brussilof in the Rocky Mountains, has been in production since 1979. About 200,000 tonnes are processed annually in Alberta, producing caustic and fused magnesia.

Asbestos is about to make a comeback in the province. After several years of dormancy, the Cassiar mine, north of Dease Lake, now has a pilot plant that is recovering short-fibre asbestos from tailings. An expansion program is scheduled for completion in the year 2000.

Alberta

Government officials in Alberta are taking more than a passing interest in this month’s opening of the Ekati diamond mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories. With numerous companies searching for diamonds in Alberta, the government is hoping diamonds will leap-frog over limestone, sand and gravel, and sulphur as the most valuable industrial minerals produced in the province.

These commodities now account for about 68% of the value of industrial mineral production in Alberta, which last year was $468 million. And Alberta, in turn, accounts for just over 8% of Canada’s total industrial mineral production, which last year was valued at $5.6 billion.

Alberta cement and lime production was valued at $176 million last year, while the value of sand and gravel reached $134.5 million.

A 1991 survey found that 66% of sand and gravel production came from 10% of the 300 private- and public-sector producers in the province. The survey also found that haulage distances ranged from 8 to 140 km, and half of all market regions in Alberta will be depleted of sand and gravel supplies in two decades.

Alberta produces 87% of Canada’s sulphur as a co-product of sour gas production at more than 50 sour gas processing plants scattered across the province. Another 8% comes from the refining of heavy oil from oil-sands plants near Fort McMurray.

Last year, Alberta’s extensive peatlands produced 129,000 tonnes of peat moss worth $22.1 million. The province also has extensive salt deposits, which last year produced 1.1 million tonnes valued at $15 million.

Oil sands byproducts, such as titanium minerals and zircon, are attracing interest and study.

Saskatchewan

Renowned for its uranium production, Saskatchewan also has vast quantities of industrial minerals, particularly potash. The province ranks second, behind Ontario, as the country’s largest producer of industrial minerals, which were valued at $1.4 billion last year.

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan is the world’s largest producer of potash, producing in 1997 6.4 million tonnes of raw potassium chloride. The company controls about 691,000 acres in the province and operates six mines on two potash-bearing formations there. The Lanigan, Patience Lake, Cory and Allan mines are built on evaporites near the Patience Lake formation, whereas the Rocanville and Esterhazy mines exploit the Esterhazy evaporites in the south.

Other firms involved in potash production are Agrium, which operates the Vanscoy mine, and Illinois-based IMC Global Operations, which operates the Kalium-Colonsay, Belle Plain and K-1 and K-2 mines.

The combined operations of these three companies in 1997 produced 8.2 million tonnes of potash used in the manufacture of animal feed, fertilizer, as a water softener and in the production of drilling muds for use in oil fields.

Saskatchewan hosts 21 sodium sulphate deposits, which occur around alkaline lakes throughout the province. Each lake has reserves of at least 500,000 tonnes. The province ranks sixth in world production, producing 6% of the total from both natural sources and as by-product, providing the compound to pulp and paper, glass, textiles and detergent manufacturers.

Four companies own five sodium sulphate processing facilities, which have a combined capacity of 530,000 tonnes.

Other industrial minerals produced in the province include: bentonite, for which production of 80,000 tonnes per year is used in animal feed, fertilizer and sealants; aggregates such as sand and gravel; building stone and silica sands; and kaolin.

Manitoba

In the past decade, the value of all mineral production in Manitoba has averaged about $1 billion, with industrial minerals accounting for 10% of that total.

Manitoba’s industrial mineral production includes sand and gravel (about half the total value), crushed and dimension stone, lime, gypsum, peat moss, pegmatite minerals and a minor amount of sulphur.

Looking ahead, government officials see potential for production of other commodities from either reactivated operations or new deposits, namely: chromite; potash; silica sand from quartz; magnesium metal from dolomite; kaolin; titanium; vanadium and magnetite; and lithium carbonate from spodumene.

Manitoba has about 400 producers in the aggregate sector, the largest component of its industrial mineral production. Many of these are small operations in the southern portion of the province.

Tantalum, spodumene and amblygonite concentrates, cesium and rubidium ores, and cesium formate are produced by privately held Tantalum Mining at Bernic Lake in southeastern Manitoba. Production of tantalum oxide from the Precambrian pegmatite began in 1969.

Ontario

Although primarily known for its prolific gold and base metal deposits, Ontario plays host to 18 industrial mineral mines and quarries stretching from Windsor in the south to Marathon in the northeast.

Provincial sales of industrial minerals in 1996, the last year for which such figures are available, amounted to $1.5 billion. Ontario produced 28% of the country’s total output of industrial minerals, the highest of any province.

The primary industrial minerals mined in Ontario are silica, gypsum, tremolite, hedmanite, talc, peat, nepheline syenite, salt, calcite

and barite.

Privately held Extender Minerals is Ontario’s only barite producer, and one of four such producers in all of Canada. It operates the Yarrow Township underground mine, which in 1996 produced 12,000 tonnes, about one-fifth of the total production of 58,000 tonnes. Material from the mine grades between 93% and 97% barite, which is used in the manufacture of paints, plastics and brake linings.

With production of 430,000 tonnes per year, the Badgeley Island silica quarry is the largest in the province, accounting for about half of a total production of 880,000 tonnes. Other producers include the Hughes quarry, near Kingston, which, though inactive, it is still shipping from stockpiled material, and the Alban quarry, near Sudbury, which produces 5,000 tonnes per year. The silica produced in Ontario is valued at $11 million.

Ontario is host to two gypsum mines,
the Caledonia No. 3 mine and the Hagersville mine, owned by private firms Georgia Pacific Canada in Caledonia and Canadian Gypsum Company in Hagersville, respectively. Georgia Pacific’s operation includes a mill that produces 400,000 tonnes of gypsum per year.

Production in 1997 from Ontario’s five salt mines was valued at $262 million. These include the Windsor Brine Field and Ojibway mine operated by unlisted Canadian Salt in Windsor, the Goderich brine field and mine operated by privately held Sifto Canada in Goderich, and the Anderson brine field in Amherstberg. The mines produced 9 million tonnes of salt in 1997.

Ontario also plays host to two talc mines, the Penhorwood in Timmins and the Henderson in Madoc. The latter mine is one of Ontario’s oldest industrial mineral operations, having been in production since 1896. The operation’s two mills produce about 15,000 tonnes of talc per year. The open-pit Penhorwood mine produced 37,500 tonnes of talc in 1997.

Quebec

There was an 11% decline in Quebec’s industrial mineral shipments in 1997, with gains from the graphite and salt sectors failing to offset losses from the dominant asbestos and titanium sectors. Still, Quebec’s industrial-mineral companies produced $620 million worth of goods in 1997, or almost 18% of the total value of the province’s mineral production.

In the Eastern Townships, asbestos producers have been doubly hit in recent years both by outright bans on asbestos from European Union countries (including, most recently, France) and declining demand from Asian countries as construction activity cools in that region.

Quebec produced 447,000 tonnes of asbestos in 1997, down 57,000 tonnes from the previous year. The value of production was $224 million in 1997, down from $256 million in 1996.

Noranda (NOR-T) will be making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear by winning magnesium metal from the Jeffrey mine’s asbestos tailings. The $700-million Magnola processing plant is being built on the outskirts of the town of Asbestos.

On the North Shore, at Havre-Saint-Pierre, QIT-Fer et Titane continues to produce ilmenite and titanium from an open pit at the rate of 3,000 tonnes per year. Processing takes place off-site at the QIT-Sorel smelter, 60 km downstream from Montreal.

New on the scene is Ressources Orleans (OLS-M), which has a wollastonite mine and processing plant in the Lac-Saint-Jean region. The company has had a difficult time breaking into the wollastonite business: in June, only a month after announcing its first commercial shipment, production was suspended as a result of sagging sales.

On the Iles-de-la-Madeleine, off the northern coast of Cape Breton, the Saleine salt mine reopened in August 1997. However, production had to be halted several months later because of water infiltration problems.

Also reopened is the Uniquartz silica quarry at St.-Vianney in the Gasp region.

One advantage of producing industrial minerals in Quebec is that companies can make use of the provincially owned Centre de recherche minire (CRM) in Sainte-Foy. CRM carries out research and development in all aspects of mineral processing, and its customers have included such companies as Tiomin Resources (TIO-T), QIT Fer et Titane and Ressources Orleans.

Newfoundland

Reflecting a diverse geological environment, Newfoundland and Labrador offer a wide variety of industrial mineral commodities, as well as an impressive number of deposits with development potential.

The production and trade of industrial rocks and minerals are important contributors to the provincial economy. The sector is growing fast, with current production valued at $46.7 million per year, up from $38.7 million in 1993. Also, industrial minerals account for almost 5% of the total present value of mineral production in the province, which last year exceeded $1 billion.

Existing operations produce gypsum, shale, limestone, dolomite, granite, marble, peat, anorthosite and slate, in addition to structural materials such as cement, stone, sand and gravel.

Important deposits with development potential include antimony, high-technology elements, fluorspar, silica, white marble, limestone and dolomite, talc, barite and salt.

The dimension stone industry is growing rapidly, signs of which are the development of an anorthosite dimension stone operation in northern Labrador and the revival of a slate and granite industry in Newfoundland. The Inuit-owned Torngait Ujaganniavingit Corp. developed its Ten Mile Bay anorthosite deposit in the Nain area in 1992 and is now engaged in regular shipments, to Europe, of cut blocks under the trade names “Reflect Blue” and “Blue Eyes.” Production in 1997 was valued at $2 million.

The 1996 opening, by unlisted Atlantic Gypsum Resources, of a gypsum quarry in western Newfoundland signalled the beginning of a new era in the commercial production of that commodity. Shipments this year are expected to be a modest 30,000 tonnes, but the company is reported to be exploring expanding into the export market.

Government sources say the future is bright for industrial minerals, one example being plans to develop an antimony deposit near Glenwood in central Newfoundland. Oil production and ongoing exploration have triggered interest in barite, a commodity used mainly to control the density of drilling fluids. United Bolero Development (UNB-V) plans to supply this niche market by exploiting the province’s largest reserve of barite at Buchans, also in central Newfoundland. Other barite deposits are attracting attention as well.