Same-Day Service at Kienna Gold

It used to eat up a lot of time to lower Kiena Gold mine’s bigger load-haul-dump machines to the workings below. The 28-ton LHDs were dismantled on surface and lowered in pieces down the shaft.

Extensive modifications to its principal ventilation shaft to improve air quality underground now allow Kiena to lower the machines underground in a single day. Mechanics check the oil levels, connect the battery and adjust the carburetor underground and the machine is ready for service, according to a brief item in Prospect.

Pierre Viens, Kiena safety co-ordinator, put it all in perspective rather imaginatively: “By feeding a monster to the earth, Kiena hopes that the earth will deliver a monstrous quantity of gold.”