Cassiar completes shipment

Toronto-based Cassiar Mines & Metals (CIR-T) has begun making international deliveries of its first commercially produced chrysotile fibre from the Cassiar plant in northern British Columbia.

The company is on track to achieving fibre production of 1,500 tonnes per month; this rate will increase later this year and early next year following an expansion of the dry and the commissioning of a wet plant. The expansion will allow the company to produce a broader range of products. By 2002, Cassiar hopes to boost fibre production to 50,000 tonnes per year.

The initial fibre shipments were made to buyers in India, Iran, Dubai, Japan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand.

The company says its chrysotile magnesium fibre products have the unusual quality of being completely free of tremolite, a sharp-edged mineral crystal regarded as a hazardous substance. The general quality of the fibre is described as being “in keeping with Cassiar’s usual high standards” and is consistent with previous production, which began in 1953.

Cassiar Mines & Metals acquired the project after the previous operator went bankrupt as a result of cost overruns related to an over-ambitious program of underground development.