Abandoned Minto mine in Yukon put up for sale

The idled Minto mine in central Yukon, which began operations in 2007 and produced about 500 million lb. of copper since, is officially up for sale.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, acting as the court-appointed receiver of mine owner Minto Metals Corp., confirmed on its website last week that it’s soliciting offers for the entire property or parts of it. The initial bidding period will end on Oct. 6, 2023, the auditing firm said.

The launch of the sales process comes about four months after the suspension of the copper-gold-silver mine, which had been operated by the now-delisted Minto Metals. The subsidiary of U.K.-based Pembridge Resources bought the project from Capstone Mining in 2019.

The sudden suspension left its workers, contractors and the Selkirk First Nation, high and dry. The mine sits on the territory of that First Nation. The Yukon government subsequently had to step in to manage the site and protect the local environment.

Prior to the suspension, the territorial government had warned that the mine’s tailings storage pits were running out of room, thus increasing the risk of untreated water spilling into the nearby Minto Creek, and from there into the Yukon River.

In Minto Metals’ May 2023 announcement, it did not provide details for reasons of the suspension, saying only that it was “acting responsibly” in cooperation with the government to avoid any environmental damage.

However, it had been well-documented that the company was dealing with financial difficulties. John Streicker, Yukon’s mines minister, confirmed to CBC that the government has about $75 million in security payments from Minto, which it had fallen behind.

“So a mine company stepped away from their mine. We’re back in there within 24 hours using the money that they gave us for security, to make sure that we protect the environment and to protect the ability for that mine to have a viable future — that, to me, is things working,” Streicker told reporters on May 15.

In addition to the $75 million, Minto Metals is also said to owe at least $64 million to a variety of creditors, PwC’s documents showed. It is alleged that the company also has millions of dollars worth of unpaid bills to various contractors and workers.

“That debt, along with other costs such as paying outstanding financial security for the property — Minto Metals owed the Yukon government an additional $18 million before its collapse — and getting the mine up and running again, may make Minto a hard sell,” Yukon Conservation Society mining analyst Lewis Rifkind said in a CBC interview this week.

“There’s a lot of money that’s going to be required just to financially stabilize the site, let alone, you know, once you put boots on the ground, the environmental work [and] all that sort of stuff,” he said.