Mineral Res. commissions asbestos project

British Columbia is once again an asbestos-producing province.

Mineral Resources (MIC-T) has commissioned the Cassiar chrysotile asbestos project in northern B.C. Because the project was a few months late in opening, however, asbestos fibre was produced only for one week prior to the temporary closure of the non-winterized plant. It will reopen in late April or May 1998.

Cassiar project management and Kilborn Engineering are investigating some technical matters at the Centre de technologie minerale et de plasturgie at Thetford Mines, Que. These investigations are expected to be completed by mid-December, rendering the project ready for continued production in the spring.

Mineral Resources holds an 80% interest in the Cassiar project and is operator, while Australia-based Greenfields Coal holds the remainder.

Mineral Resources is negotiating with Greenfields in order to acquire the latter company’s 20% share.

The Cassiar chrysotile asbestos mine was first brought into production in 1953 as an open-pit operation. In 1990, with the near-surface resource near exhaustion, Princeton Mining (pmc-t) elected to switch to underground mining of the adjacent McDame deposit using block caving techniques. The price tag for the project was $53 million.

In 1992, the operating company, Cassiar Mining (a subsidiary of Princeton) was still trying to obtain the financing necessary to complete the McDame project when it was forced into receivership by the B.C. government.

Cliff Resources (which became Mineral Resources in a share-for-share name change in 1995) acquired rights to the Cassiar chrysotile deposit and tailings dumps, mining and exploration licences and certain property and equipment at a liquidator’s auction in 1992.

In the years that followed, an Australian firm developed wet processing technology, which allows for the recovery of chrysotile fibres from the Cassiar tailings dumps.

The 16 million tonnes of tailings contain 4.4% chrysotile asbestos fibre, while the underground mine, which Mineral Resources expects to reopen eventually, contains 30 million tonnes grading 16% chrysotile.

According to Mineral Resources Chairman Clifford Frame, Cassiar will initially produce 12,000 to 15,000 tonnes of asbestos fibre annually, and then ramp up to 50,000 in a year or two.

Frame is confident that Cassiar will be able to sell chrysotile asbestos fibre in 1998 and beyond, and he said the plant could be winterized in the future if demand necessitates year-round production.

Mineral Resources recently concluded a marketing agreement with a large Japan-based trading company, Kakiuchi, which will market Cassiar’s asbestos fibres in Southeast Asia.

Mineral Resources states that the terms of the arrangement will facilitate the financing of the Cassiar project.

Chrysotile asbestos fibre is used primarily in the building materials sector in the form of fibre-reinforced cement products for sheeting, roofing and piping.

Southeast Asia imports 300,000 tonnes of chrysotile fibre from Canada, representing 60% of Canada’s output. Kakiuchi has informed Cassiar that it expects to sell 14,000 tonnes of Cassiar’s fibre in the region in 1998 and 36,000 tonnes in 1999.

Cassiar’s asbestos fibre had been a preferred source of supply for fibre cement manufacturers because of its superior filtration and reinforcing characteristics. Fibre cement products, in general, possess significant technical and economic advantages over synthetic materials.