MSV opens up new greenstone belt

Having acquired the local mining assets of Westminer Canada in February, 1993, MSV Resources (TSE) now finds itself with excess milling capacity.

The 3,000-tonne-per-day mill, situated at Copper Rand mine, treats ore for only 4 1/2 days a week, three shifts a day.

But for a junior upstart such as MSV, unused milling capacity and an idle cyanidation circuit spell opportunity — specifically, an opportunity to develop several new gold deposits and grow into a mid-size producer. The company, under President Mario Caron, is delineating reserves adjacent to its two existing mines, Copper Rand and Portage, in this 45-year-old copper-gold camp. It is also spending $4 million (courtesy of Quebec taxpayers) to push a 170-km winter road northward from Temiscamie, through the snow and jackpine forest.

The road will open up a whole new greenstone belt, paralleling the Eastmain River. Companies such as Inco, Kingswood Resources and Soquem hold ground in the belt.

The Northern Miner was visiting MSV’s properties late last month when the first convoy of 11 flatbed trucks, laden with fuel tanks, electric generators and other heavy equipment, pulled out of town. Over the next few weeks, the convoy will haul 150 loads to the isolated Eastmain deposit, a total of 340 km distant.

At 906,013 tonnes grading 10.03 grams gold per tonne (diluted), a profitable Eastmain deposit will require efficient logistics. All equipment and fuel necessary to mine 65,000 tonnes of ore and 15,000 tonnes of waste rock and keep about 45 people warm and comfortable over the next 12 months must be on site by mid-April. Any delay would be costly.

Several questions remain: Will 23,000 kg of explosives be enough to break rock for 900 metres of underground development and 3-4 production stopes? Will 2.2 million litres of diesel fuel be sufficient to operate two 22-tonne trucks, two load-haul-dump machines, a drill jumbo, two service vehicles and two electric generators for 12 months?

Whatever is not hauled over the winter road in the next few weeks will have to be flown in, at added expense. However, Project Co-ordinator Denis Gourde, who cut his teeth with mining contractor Ross Finlay of Val d’Or, Que., is confident nothing major has been forgotten.

Seventy employees and their food will be flown in to Eastmain on a regular schedule, probably on a 7-days-in/7-days-out rotation, beginning in May. At 2.4 metres thick and dipping at a shallow 30, the orebody will be mined in the same manner in which Muscocho Exploration worked the Montauban deposit in southern Quebec in the 1980s — inclined room-and-pillar, using jacklegs and slushers. (Productivity at Montauban was 40 tonnes per manshift.) The company estimates a cash operating cost of US$250-255 per oz. gold and capital costs will likely total $20 million.

Discovered in the 1970s by Placer Development, the orebody consists of eight separate zones. The potential is excellent for finding more ore in the area, according to Chief Geologist Alain Blais.

Ore will be hauled to surface in 22-tonne trucks and stockpiled. Then, in mid-January, 1995, it will be trucked over the winter and all-weather roads to Chibougamau from Temiscamie. In the following year, 150,000 tonnes will be trucked.

— Patrick Whiteway is editor of “Canadian Mining Journal.” A more detailed report on the Eastmain project will appear in the April, 1994, issue of that magazine.