PROFILE Falconbridge’s Belford tackles new challenges at Sudbury

After more than two decades at the Kidd Creek mine, Eric Belford’s recent reassignment as vice-president and general manager of Falconbridge Ltd.’s Sudbury division has meant an entirely new focus for the 58-year-old engineer.

Whereas Kidd Creek has no unions, the Sudbury operations have two — Mine Mill and the United Steelworkers of America. Kidd Creek extracts 50% more tonnage out of a single mine than Sudbury does from five mines. Kidd Creek is a near-vertical deposit mined by bulk methods; the Sudbury mines are relatively flatlying affairs mined mostly by cut-and-fill methods.

Belford’s links to mining go as far back as the Yukon gold rush. A relative was among the gold-seekers who trekked to the Yukon placer fields. Belford graduated from McGill University in 1956. The mine engineer, an avid angler and golfer, subsequently worked for the Cerro dePasco base metal mine in Peru, Asbestos Corp. in Quebec, Advocate Mines in Newfoundland and the potash mines of Saskatachewan.

He joined Kidd Creek as chief mine engineer in 1969 and later became vice-president of mining. He kept that position after Canada Development Corp., a crown agency, bought the operation from Texas Gulf Sulphur. In 1986, when Falconbridge acquired Kidd Creek, he was appointed director of mining.

“Kidd was one of the first operations in North America to be developed from the start as a mine for mobile equipment,” says Belford in a recent interview with The Northern Miner. All the equipment was trackless and a ramp was collared from the second bench of the open pit into the underground workings. This allowed the shaft to be used strictly for service and hoisting of ore and personnel.

Kidd Creek is sometimes viewed was an over-designed Cadillac of a mine. The concrete haulageways, for example, are often commented on. “People have asked me how we could afford it. The real answer is that we couldn’t afford not to. With the sizes and pieces of equipment we had, other roadbeds couldn’t withstand the traffic, nor could the equipment take the punishment.”

At Sudbury, Belford is applying his mining expertise to the new challenges. “I’m learning the operation here to see what I can contribute,” he says. “The people are obviously quite capable. My function will be to glue it all together.”

Olav Svela is the editor of The Northern Miner Magazine whose May issue features a complete review of Falconbridge operations at Timmins and Sudbury.