Eight new mines to open in BC by 2015, but which ones are they?

B.C.’s new premier, Christy Clark, has unveiled a new jobs plan for the province that is long on rhetoric and short on details.

Titled “Canada Starts Here,” the plan pushes aside the province’s spotty record of mine development over the past 20 years and emphatically announces that the government is committed to eight new mines and the expansion of another nine operating mines in B.C. by 2015.

The government anticipates this growth spurt will generate $1.6 billion of additional provincial tax revenue per year once these projects are fully operational, and create some 1,800 direct mining jobs and sustain more than 5,000 more.

But which projects are they, exactly?

A spokesperson for the B.C. Ministry of Energy and Mines would not disclose their names or locations, and acknowledged there were no binding agreements in place for the mines to be built by 2015, if at all. 

“New and expanding mining projects are led by private [sector] companies that have confidentiality agreements in place which preclude us from releasing information until companies have had a chance to publicly release their plans,” stated the spokesperson in an email to The Northern Miner.

Gavin Dirom, president of the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia, said in a recent telephone interview that he was pleased with the jobs plan announcement and the focus it puts on B.C.’s mining industry. 

“We know in the industry that there are upwards of twenty advanced projects in the pipeline. The majority of new [mining] projects in Canada are located in B.C., we know that and we’ve all been talking about that for quite some time. Which are the immediate eight that are going to go forward in short order? Well, that’s a little bit tricky, of course.”

The provincial government provided a few other details about how it plans to advance mining interests in the province. It has agreed to spend an extra $24 million over the next year to reduce a backlog of applications for permits and approvals in the natural resource sector.

After the backlog is reduced, the target for turnaround on new notices of work will be 60 days. 

A major investment office will also be created to “work with investors proposing significant projects in B.C. to co-ordinate and accelerate government’s activities to support them,” as will a new BC jobs and investment board with a similar mandate to “promote economic development by promoting investment opportunities.” 

Lastly, the plan allows for the creation of an Aboriginal business and investment council, which will “enhance Aboriginal people’s capacity for economic participation, transcend traditional Aboriginal and industry silos in project planning and development and provide investors with the tools they need to engage and partner with B.C. First Nations.” 

Still, the planned construction of eight new mines and the expansion of nine others seem to have more to do with higher metal prices than another set of government-backed boards, offices and councils. 

This, combined with the highly anticipated construction of the Northwest Transmission Line, likely accounts for most of Clark’s promise for eight new mines in B.C. over the next four years. 

To help put things in perspective, when Copper Mountain Mining (CUM-T) reopened its Copper Mountain mine near Princeton in August, Rich Coleman, the Minister of Energy and Mines, noted that the last major metals mine in B.C. opened in 1998.  

Though not directly included in the jobs plan, the province announced in September it had selected contractors to start construction of the Northwest Transmission Line shortly. The $404-million project will extend power 344 km north from the existing Skeena substation south of Terrace to a new substation near Bob Quinn Lake. 

The federal government has agreed to chip in $130 million for the transmission line, with service expected by December 2013.

And while the B.C. government has been quiet so far about which companies it might help fast-track to development, there are some clues, like a map drawn by B.C.’s Ministry of Energy and Mines, entitled, “Operating Mines and Mine Development Projects in British Columbia 2011.”

The map lists five mining projects which are already fully permitted, including Thompson Creek Metals‘ (TCM-T, TC-N) Mount Milligan open-pit copper-gold project 150 km northwest of Prince George, scheduled to begin operations in 2013. 

The others are: New Gold‘s (NGD-T, NGD-X) New Afton underground gold-copper mine near Kamloops, currently under construction and expected to begin operations in mid-2012, with annual production of 85,000 oz. gold and 75 million lbs. copper; Polaris Minerals‘ (PLS-T) Eagle Rock Quarry project, a proposed granite quarry 15 km south of Port Alberni on Vancouver Island in which local First Nations groups own a 30% interest (Polaris has not yet started construction and needs to raise significant funds to do so. It had negative $2.7 million in working capital as of June 30.); Chieftain Metals‘ (CFB-V) Tulsequah Chief polymetallic project near Atlin in northern B.C., which last saw production in the 1950s and for which a feasibility study was completed in 2007 (the company is now revamping the study using higher metal prices and hopes to make a construction decision next year); and Adanac‘s (AUA-V) Ruby Creek open-pit molybdenum project, also near Atlin, which has been stuck on standby mode since the company entered bankruptcy protection in 2008. Adanac started construction of the mine in late 2007 but hit hard times during the financial crisis. It emerged from creditor protection in February 2011 after a 1-for-150 share rollback.

Four other mining projects are in the Mines Act permitting process, according to the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

The most advanced of the three is Imperial Metals‘ (III-T) Red Chris copper-gold project, located 80 km south of Dease Lake in northwestern B.C. Imperial is looking to build a 30,000-tonne-per-day open-pit mine there by early 2014, after bringing power another 120 km north from the end of the Northwest Transmission Line to its proposed mill site. Provincial and federal environmental approvals for the project have been received, and the final stage of permitting under the Mines Act is now underway.

Two of the three other projects at this stage are owned by Barkerville Gold Mines‘ (BGM-V), including their small Bonanza Ledge and Cariboo Gold Quartz gold projects near Quesnel, while the third is Huldra Silver‘s (HDA-V) Treasure Mountain underground silver project near Hope.

There are 12 projects going through the environmental certification process while 13 more have applications that are being compiled, according to B.C.’s Ministry of Energy and Mines.

Among the most advanced are: Taseko Mines‘ (TKO-T, TGB-X) New Prosperity gold-copper project near Williams Lake, which though approved by the provincial government in 2010, was rejected by the federal government months later because of First Nations opposition to the destruction of a what they regard as a sacred lake (Taseko has reapplied for environmental approval after changing the mine plan to dump tailings somewhere else); the Blackwater-Davidson project owned by New Gold, bought this June through the takeover of Vancouver’s Richfield Ventures; Teck Resources‘ (TCK.B-T, TCK-N) and NovaGold Resources‘ (NG-T, NG-N) expensive Galore Creek copper-gold-silver property near Stewart, which suffered escalating capital costs after a brief construction stint in 2007; and Castle Resources‘ (CRI-V) Granduc copper project, also near Stewart, and currently the subject of a 30,000-metre drill program.

The province has 10 metal mines in operatio
n, as well as 10 coal mines and 36 industrial mineral mines.