Porcupine Reef posts banner year

For Porcupine Reef Gold Mines, 1950 was not just a good year; it was its best year ever.

The mine owes much of its success to the recovery of higher-grade ore during the past 12 months. Porcupine averaged $15 per ton in 1950, compared to $6.85 in 1949, while keeping operating costs at $6.70 per ton. Production is estimated 99,713 tons.

Although reserve calculations have not been completed, the milled ore has been more than replaced. Once the numbers are in, the new figure should reach nearly 300,000 tons of high-grade ore in reserve.

Estella Mines, near Cranbrook, B.C., plans to advance a high-grade lead-zinc occurrence to production at an initial rate of 150 tons per day.

The mine, in the East Kootenay region of the Fort Steel Mining division, is slightly north of Consolidated Smelters’ Sullivan mine.

A concentrator is being designed for treating 220 tons of ore per day.

The main exposure of the Estella vein is in the Rover Tunnel, driven at an elevation of 6,250 ft. The tunnel is being used to explore the vein for a distance of 880 ft.

Hudson Bay Mining & Smelting has postponed until March the opening of its fuming plant, near Flin Flon, Man. The reason is that a furnace, which was scheduled to be shipped from Ohio in January, has been delayed.

When the plant goes on-stream, it will boost the company’s output to about 130 million lbs. per year, an increase of 30 million lbs. The plant will make Hudson Bay one of the world’s largest zinc producers.

Offsetting the tremendous increase in zinc output will be a slight decrease in copper output; silver and gold production will remain roughly the same.

The plant will draw ore from the almost 1 million tons of zinc residues stockpiled on the property.

As soon as the ice is solid near the Falls Bay area of Steep Rock Lake, 11 drill rigs, owned by Caland Ore Co., a subsidiary of Inland Steel, will swing into action on the “C” orebody. The deposit was leased from Steep Rock Iron Mines, based near Atikokan, Ont.

The drilling effort, one of the most concentrated ever undertaken in Canada, is estimated to last four years.

Caland wants to ensure that the property contains at least 100 million tonnes to a depth of 1,000 ft. The area under investigation lies about a mile from Steep Rock’s Errington mine, the source of all production to date.

The project is envisioned as a large-scale operation producing 3 million tons annually.