The life of the Cassiar Asbestos mine has been

“We’re diamond drilling and finding some more (ore). It’s very encouraging as far as reserves are concerned for the coming years,” Verret told reporters and T ory MP John MacDougall, parliamentary secretary to Mines Minister Jake Epp, duri ng a recent tour.

Mine manager Bill Zemenchik said the exploration budget this year is $500,000 at the mine, owned by Cassiar Mining (TSE), and he thinks more reserves will be identified before the year is out.

Sixteen million tonnes of ore have already been singled out. Another 4.5-5 million tonnes have been added to this in preliminary drill results, ad ded chief en gineer Eugene Mehr.

He said drilling is concentrated at the southeast end of the McDame underground deposit, which is now being developed at a cost of $50 mill ion. The British Co lumbia government is helping out with a $25-million loan, announced last year.

That loan helped give the debt- ridden northern British Columbia mine — at 38 years old the second- oldest operating mine in the province — new hope for the future as the open-pit deposit faced the end of its productivity.

Mehr said open-pit mining was accelerated last fall. About 1.6 million tonnes of ore were stockpiled when the open-pit officially closed June 1.

Now there are just under 1.4 million tonnes of stockpiled, designed to keep the mill busy until underground production starts in September 1990.

Full production is due to be achieved by January 1991, Zemenchik said.

He said the underground will be more labor-intensive than the open- pit, with a strip-ratio comparable to that of the open-pit several years ago, when mining was done seven days a week.

The company plans to advertise locally and across Canada for underground miners, which Zemenchik noted are a scarce resource now. About 150 p eople in total will be employed underground, he said, including about 120 miners and 30 development staff.

Of the current staff of 360 (plus 50 people on contract), Zemenchik said 41 have expressed interest in the underground, and a joint union- manageme nt committe e has been established to look at training for these people.

Zemenchik said the mill currently produces 340 tonnes a day of raw asbestos fibre at capacity, from an average of 3,200 tonnes of ore a day. The fi bre recover y rate is 10-11%.

Last year the company sold about 110,000 tonnes of asbestos worth $66.1 million, finance vice- president Anthony Kana said, and the forecast is similar for 19 89. Asbestos prices are up about 5% — to about $630 a tonne from an average of $600 last year.

The mill rate will stay the same when underground mining kicks in, but the ore grade is lower, so about 133,000 tonnes of ore will move through the mill each month, compared with about 100,000 tonnes now.

The mine is in the process of developing a wet mill to recycle lower-grade asbestos ore which isn’t economical to run through the existing dry mil l system.

Mehr said a pilot project is under way with CANMET, a federal government research agency. There have been some successes and some failures so fa r, Zemenchik s aid.

In a wet mill, water is added to separate fibres from rock. In the dry mill, the ore is crushed; the fibres are then vacuumed off a screen.

Canadian Mine Development, a private contracting firm, is doing the underground development, Zemenchik said.

During an underground tour, Verret explained that the system of ground supports is very extensive because of the “very soft rock.” Shotcrete – – dry concrete a nd water mixed at high pressure — is sprayed in two layers on the tunnel walls, with wire mesh in between, to prevent loose rock from collapsing on miners.

Five-metre-long reinforcing bars are also placed in the walls, with resin cartridges placed in the drilled holes first to lock in the rods.

Three kilometres of drifts have been completed since last summer, Verret said, adding to about three kilometres in exploration drifts.

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