Development to 6,800 ft. at Kidd Creek proceeding, but production

The Kidd Creek Division of Falconbridge Ltd. at Timmins, Ont., does not expect a 16-day loss of production to affect overall 1990 production, according to Vice- President and General Manager Warren Holmes. The production loss resulted in June when a runout of the converting furnace in the copper smelter occurred. During the outage, a significant amount of planned maintenance work — and the necessary repair work — was carried out in the smelter and a planned maintenance shutdown for this month was cancelled.

In the past 18 months, development of the No. 3 mine at Kidd Creek from the 4600 level to the 6800 level has been proceeding. “It’s going as planned and on schedule,” Holmes said. Thus far, the hoist room has been completed, the hoist has been installed and commissioned and some shaft- sinking has been completed.

Although the company doesn’t release predictions of annual production figures, Holmes did tell The Northern Miner that “we’re pretty pleased” with production but added he couldn’t say if the division would top last year’s record high output from its copper refinery and zinc plant. “It’s probably fair to say that 1990 production, by plan, will be somewhat less than that of 1989,” he said.

Mine output is falling slightly, as expected, because the Kidd Creek orebody is diminishing in width. The Kidd Creek Division of Falconbridge is an integrated mining and metallurgical complex producing zinc, copper, silver, cadmium and sulphuric acid.