Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North. Ian Ross is the editor of Northern Ontario Business ianross@nob.on.ca.
Cementation Canada will be on familiar turf later this year as the North Bay mine builder has landed a major contract to rehabilitate the shafts at a Goderich salt mine.
Kansas-based Compass Minerals, the owners of the Sifto salt mine, selected Cementation as part of a “multi-million-dollar” upgrade to reline the walls of two 55-year-old shafts at the mine, located on the shores of Lake Huron.
Details of the contract were to be ironed out in September, but project engineering work has already started. Cementation has some lineage to Goderich dating back decades when a predecessor company sunk the original No. 1 shaft in 1959, followed by a second one in 1968.
The job involves both underground and surface work that will see as many as 100 Cementation workers and sub-contractors on the site at peak periods of the three-year project.
Cementation president Roy Slack explained the company’s history dates back to the early 1900s and its Belgian founder, Albert Francois, who patented the grouting process for the mining industry.
Back then, a number of shafts couldn’t be sunk past water-bearing zones until the process was developed. Francois’ company became an industry leader at the time.
That kind of shaft work continues to be an ongoing legacy.
“We just finished a successful project for Potash Corporation in Picadilly, New Brunswick where we sank two shafts through water-bearing ground with a complex liner.”
In a news release, Compass Minerals president Michael Marksberry said Cementation presented a “good proposal” to address the upper portion of the shafts – the water-bearing zones – with a low-risk approach.
“When Compass Minerals went out to tender on the project,” said Slack, “they had a very basic concept which included removing the liner in different portions of the shaft. Because of the nature of these water-bearing zones, we felt that removing the liner would pose some risk.
“What we did is propose another method where we would put a liner inside the existing one that wouldn’t remove the liner and expose the water-bearing zones.”
The existing concrete liners of the 1,800-foot-deep shafts will be overlaid with steel or removed and replaced depending on the depth below surface, the geology and hydrology.
Since the salt mine is a furiously busy operation, rehabilitation work has to be sequenced so as not to interfere with production.
“It’s nothing new for us,” said Slack. “We have to work closely with the operations group and minimize any delays.”
Besides installing new liners, Cementation’s sub-contractors will remove an existing headframe and erect a new one on the surface.
The rehabilitation will allow Compass to meet its target of nine million tons of annual hoisting capacity.
While other mining service companies have staggered through the global industry downturn, Slack said Cementation has remained quite active, especially in its U.S. work.
Slack said they’ve latched onto some good underground projects with some longevity such as Lundin Mining’s Eagle Mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Kennecott’s Bingham Canyon project near Salt Lake City and shaft sinking at Hecla Mining’s Lucky Friday project in northern Idaho.
In Ontario, Cementation still has remaining work at Vale’s Totten Mine in Sudbury, AuRico Gold’s Young-Davidson operations in Matachewan, and Goldcorp’s Hoyle Pond Mine in Timmins.
Slack said the timing of the Compass contract was perfect as they wrap up work for Vale in Sudbury.
“Totten was a big job for us, so you always look for a new job to replace the big ones you finish.”
www.cementation.com
www.compassminerals.com