Madeleine Mines in no rush to begin platinum mining

The big open pit orebody is now stripped and ready to go and the crushing plant is just about ready. But installation of milling equipment in the concentrator building is behind schedule and proceeding slowly.

However, the company’s entrepreneur president, J. Patrick Sheridan, who pretty well runs the entire undertaking and who foresees a sharp rise in demand and price for palladium, is apparently in no rush to get into production.

Rather he is more interested in holding to a tight budget line. Expenditures to date come to just under $10 million, with a further $4 million needed to complete mill installations. And he has budgeted another $5 million for the reduction plant which will essentially consist of a 1,000 kilovolt amperes (KVA) electric furnace, which will be located off site.

This is shaping up as a large tonnage, very low cost open pit operation, and the first straight producer of platinum group metals in this country. For a 3,000-ton-per-day operation, the total cost from scratch to production could prove to be something of an eye opener.

The Roby zone, which has been stripped for a length of 2,000 ft, shows widths up to 375 ft. When The Northern Miner visited the pit, crews were busy washing away any remaining clay by hydraulic means. This is to prevent any fouling in the mill circuit.

Arcam Drilling & Blasting of Sudbury, which has been contracted for the project, has an ultra- modern hydraulic drill on the job that is capable of drilling 800 ft a day. It is putting down a whole series of 4-in holes to a depth of 40 ft to cut a wide slot right down the centre of the zone. Samples are being taken every 10 ft (80 per day) and are shipped to the Bell-White Analytical Laboratories at Haileybury. This cut, which will be 40-ft wide and 40-ft deep, will provide 4,000 ft of pit face, permitting good grade control when regular mining starts, building up a 100,000 ton stockpile of ore in the process.

On site, too, is a sizeable O & K shovel with a 3 1/2 yd bucket, capable of handling 465 tons per hour.

Two 50-ton trucks will be required for the 1,200-ft haul to the main crusher, a 42×48-in Kue-Ken unit designed especially for handling hard rock, where it will be reduced to 6-in size at a rate of 100 tons per hour. Just recently purchased from a large British Columbian mine, this is a portable unit that comes with its own diesel power plant. Two 4-ft gyratory crushers in parallel will further reduce the ore size to 1/2 in.

The grinding units are already installed and ready to go in the spacious concentrator building. These consist of a 12×14-ft rod mill with a 750 hp motor and three 10×12-ft ball mills each with 500 hp motors.

There is no hydro power available in the area so diesel power will be used. This will be provided by five new 1,000 KVA skid-mounted units, all of which are on-site. Under full load, fuel cost will run to about $100,000 per month, Sheridan says.

There will be no ore bins. Rather, there will be an outside stockpile area designed to hold 250,000 tons. Draw points, which will feed on to a conveyor to the mill, will be heated in winter with waste heat from the diesel generators. The mill thickener, a 40-ft unit, will also be outside.

Sheridan tells The Northern Miner he expects that mining and milling costs will not exceed $10 per ton, that is, operating costs to concentrate in the bin. This includes 40 cents per ton to muck and haul the broken ore from the pit.

Extensive metallurgical studies have been carried out during the past year, particularly on flotation recoveries which now look close to 90%. At the planned initial 3,000- ton mill rate, output is expected to approximate 150,000 oz platinum group metals, 20,000 oz gold, 2,000,000 lbs nickel and 2,000,000 lbs copper annually.

First mill feed will all come from the Roby zone which has 22.5 million tons of open pit ore averaging 0.186 oz platinum group metals. Predominately palladium, the ratio of palladium to platinum varies between 4:1 and 8:1. Overall grade, too, will vary in the pit because of zoning.

Looking further ahead, Sheridan says if palladium comes into short supply, tentative plans are to mine the larger and lower grade Halo zone jointly with Roby ore, milling in the 8,000-10,000 tons per day range.

In the early stages of the operation, the high grade matte that will be turned out in the reduction plant will be refined in a commercial U.S. plant, with which the company has a 2-year agreement.

At the present time there are 25-30 employed at the mine site under mine manager James Vernon.

The property itself is held under option from The Platinum Group Mines Ltd., a private company owned 90% by Belleterre Quebec Mines, (COATS) and 10% by Sheridan. Madeleine will earn a 50% interest by bringing the mine into production at the 3,000-ton rate, with the likelihood that it will make a share exchange deal for the other 50%.

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