Directors of the Regional District Okangan Similkameen including all of the Similkameen directors were given a tour of the Copper Mountain Mine facilities 15 kilometers southwest of Princeton on June 23rd 2011.
Copper Mountain recently began a new era of mining when operations got underway earlier this month. Expectations are that the mine will be in full production in the next few weeks. Plans call for 24 hours per day, 7 day a week operation, and employing 270 employees along with 29 university students.
Copper Mountain has been mined almost continuously since 1923 after the initial accidental discovery of the ore body by American hunter Mr James Jameson in 1884 and the subsequent staking of the mountain by the famous pioneer prospector Volcanic Brown.
In 1923, Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Company acquired the property built a milling facility in Allenby adjacent to Princeton and extracted 31.5 million tonnes of ore with a grade of 1.08% copper, primarily from underground excavations in and below what are now the Pit 1 and Pit 3 areas. Mining operations ceased in 1957, due to low metal prices and transportation costs on the rail line.
Newmont Mining Corporation of Canada purchased Granby’s entire mining interest in the district and began mining from the Ingerbelle deposit in 1972. In 1979, development of mineable reserves on the Copper Mountain side of the project commenced with the installation of a new primary crusher and conveyer system. Initial production on the Copper Mountain side was from Pit 2 with additional production from Pit three in 1983. Mining of Pit 2 ceased in 1985.
In 1988 Cassiar Mining Corporation purchased Similco Mines Limited which owned the property. Production continued mining from Pits three and one until the mine closed down in late 1993 and stayed on a care and maintenance basis until copper prices improved in mid 1994. Mining concentrated in the Ingerbelle pit and low grade stockpiles in 1995 and was again closed at the end of 1995. A lack of easily accessible reserves rising production costs and necessary capital expenditures resulted in the mine closing down in November of 1996.
This time around plans call for mining on a scale not previously seen on Copper Mountain. The 18,000 acre property is currently comprised of 135 Crown Grants, 132 mineral claims, 14 mining licenses, eight cell mineral claims and 12 fee simle lots. Eventually, the series of three pits created in past production will be excavated into one huge superpit.
The current fleet of 13 haulage vehicles capable of carrying 240 short tonnes each move 35,000 tonnes of material per day, while a pair of electrically powered Komatsu excavators gnaws away at the existing pit perimters as the walls are expanded to create the new superpit. It’s an impressive operation but in industry terms is only a medium sized open pit mine. Highland Valley Copper, near Kamloops, is 110,000 tonne per day operation by comparison.
The regional directors most affected by the mine Princeton rural director Brad Hope and Princeton director Randy MacLean see the project as a form of economic salvation for their area having had its share of ups and downs in the past decade. Indeed, for the whole regional district, Copper Mountain has provided a massive economic injection to the tune of USD 400 million development cost into a local economy that continues to find ways to recover from the 2008 recession. Copper Mountain might be mostly about copper mining but the project’s timely development shines like gold in the regional economy.
Mr MaLean said that “This has been such positive thing for Princeton - when you look at the economic devastation caused by the pine beetle epidemic in interior communities like ours, it’s one of the positive things that can happen to a small interior community, to have an ore body nearby that can be developed.”
Mine Manager Mr Bill Dodds reinforced Mr McLean’s point of view with some economic facts. Copper Mountain has an operating budget of $100,000,000 per year. We are a large purchaser of fuel from Kamloops and explosives from Prince George.
(Sourced from www.bclocalnews.com)
