Heather Latter
Work is progressing on track at New Gold’s Rainy River Project north of Barwick.
“There is a lot going on and things are progressing well,” general manager Grant Goddard said Thursday.
One of the most visual pieces of work happening is the advance on the process plant.
“Steel work is going up and we’re just starting to put the stringers on the side to hang the cladding,” Goddard noted.
He added the cladding will be going up within the next few weeks, which will close in the front of the building.
“We’re building it in kind of two pieces,” Goddard said.
“Once you have the cladding on, it’s like building a house, then you can get everybody inside working on the furnace, plumbing, drywall, finish carpentry, and cabinets.
“So the equivalent is what happens once we get the cladding on, it’s called MPEI—mechanical, piping, electrical, and instrumentation,” he explained.
“So while we’re working outside, inside in the warmth, we’ll have all that going on.”
Goddard noted the front half has the steel work up and the foundation down.
“We’re just doing the foundations on the back side as we work to finish the steel on the front end,” he remarked, adding the process plant is at least the length of one-and-a-half football fields.
“Overall, it’s not a big processing plant,” Goddard conceded. “It’s going to do 21,000 tons a day.
“It’s bigger than some little gold mines that run 5,000 or 10,000 tons a day, but I’ve run operations that process 100,000-150,000 tons a day,” he noted.
“Every site is different.”
Goddard said the crusher, which requires quite a large concrete foundation and mounting for it, also is progressing really well, as is the multi-plate tunnel.
“It’s just like a big culvert that the conveyer can come out from underneath,” he explained.
“And the earth works for water management have really progressed well,” added Goddard, though noting a lot of that work is difficult to see now due to the recent dump of snow.
“That’s continuing as we prepare to have that done as we head into spring.”
Goddard said a crew also is starting work on underground services, along with preparations for the company’s administration office and the mine dry.
Meanwhile, the relocation of Highway 600, and what is being called the east access road, are pretty much complete.
“But there’s a process to go through to transfer things between MTO and ourselves, as well as the Townships of Chapple and Morley,” stressed Goddard.
He added New Gold also will need to provide some communication to the public about the relocation of Highway 600.
“We’re just working on those pieces right now,” he said. “So it will probably be a couple of weeks yet.”
Goddard noted work at the pit also has developed quite a bit.
“It’s still obviously early days, but it’s starting to look like a mining operation,” he reasoned. “That’s pretty neat.
“We’re drilling 24 hours a day and we’re running our equipment.”
Heading into January, Goddard said they will begin their on-boarding of 10-12 people per week.
“So it’s the big wave one of employees we’ve been talking about,” he remarked, noting they had 12 surface miners and eight maintenance people begin in October.
“We’ve been working on our systems and processes and equipment, and training our first group of employees, so they can be coaches and mentors,” Goddard explained.
“So that’s all preparing for the big first wave.
“They helped get the equipment up and running, and open the mine,” he said, noting they did some drilling and blasting so they have rock to be loaded.
“We got all of our training systems trialed,” Goddard added. “So we’re not experimenting when we have the first wave; that we’ve got everything working really well.
“It’s working the way we wanted it to as we head into the New Year.”
Goddard noted about 130 total New Gold people currently are working, including the exploration and project team.
“Operations is about 100 and by the end of March, we will be around 190, so essentially we will be adding about another 100 people,” he remarked.
Of the current phase, Goddard indicated all the trucks are now assembled and working.
“We have seven trucks on site,” he noted.
“Eventually we’ll have 23 total, so we’ll be adding a few more next year and then more and more as we grow.”
He added the assembly pad now is turning into the maintenance area and the company is doing some winterization there.
In the meantime, New Gold also has been continuing to work with the local communities—recognizing local partners, meeting with communities, and making arrangements with different partners.
“Now we’re looking at operations,” he stressed. “How can we help different communities participate?
“What do we do to position people for success in our next employment waves?”
Goddard noted the late arrival of winter only has been partly beneficial to the New Gold crew.
“For hanging steel and doing some of that work, it’s nice not to have minus-30 C and howling winds,” he reasoned.
“But for the mine, we actually prefer it to be colder because it firms up the ground we’re working on and creates what we call Arctic pavement.
“The roads become nice and hard and when you are running the big trucks over it, you don’t get the road shifting,” he explained, noting a lot of the rock they are dumping for the roads is on top of clay.
“A big truck loaded can be about 400 tons,” he said.
“You have that much weight sitting on your tires and it squeezes the rock down,” he noted, making the roads become uneven.
“So we prefer it to be cold for mining,” he conceded. “But overall it’s been good.”
Goddard stressed everything is on track for commissioning of the processing plant around the second quarter of 2016, and ready for commercial production in July, 2017.
