Heather Latter
New Gold’s Rainy River project, located north of Barwick, is progressing to the point that the intermediate gold mining company is getting its hiring process going.
“Things are progressing, in a slow, planned fashion, but things are really happening,” enthused Grant Goddard, the project’s general manager.
In fact, he noted job fairs and open houses were starting up this week and running throughout April and into May.
“We’re covering everywhere from Atikokan to Rainy River,” he said. “It’s all leading to the hiring of 10 operators and 10 maintenance personnel for the fourth quarter of this year and that’s leading into the first big hiring, which is over 100 positions starting in January.
“So we’re going to hire the first wave to get the equipment up and running and get all of the training in the first wave done and systems in place,” Goddard added.
Throughout the summer, there will be the posting of roles, short-listing, and interviews and assessments, with those 20 employees hired by the end of the summer.
“And the we’ll start moving material and developing roads and starting to actually open up the pit, first getting what we call waste materials—rock and clay—and then we’ll start to open up some more. Then we can stock pile,” said Goddard.
“And as we move past here into later 2016 and 2017, we’ll be adding more people and multiple shift operations and more equipment will be arriving,” he added.
Goddard stressed anyone is invited to apply—men, women, old or young.
“I don’t care if you’re 20 years old, 55 or 60 . . . If you bring some fundamental skills, that’s good, but it’s not necessary because we’re here for the long-term,” he noted. “We’re going to train.
“The people we are looking for are people who fit with New Gold values,” he emphasized.
“It’s really about people who want to work together as a team and people who want to grow and learn,” Goddard continued. “They want to be innovative and obviously have integrity.
“It’s really top-notch, high-quality people; people who work really hard and work for each other’s success,” he added.
“[People] who look out for each other and have a lot of fun.”
Goddard noted they will be hiring plenty of maintenance and operations workers—everything from electricians, heavy-duty mechanics, and welders to mine engineers, surface miners, and general labourers.
He noted positions will be posted on their website at newgold.com/rrcareers, as well as within the local communities and newspapers.
Goddard indicated they are looking to employ people who want to live in the area.
“We’re very much about having residential employees, as opposed to fly-in, fly-out,” he stressed. “This is about people coming and creating their homes here.”
However, Goddard explained they are currently building a temporary accommodation facility.
“Part of the construction that is taking place over the next 30 months will require a whole variety of generally different, and sometimes unique, skills for short periods of time,” he noted.
“So that will be there for just a couple of years. It is not associated with the operation.”
Goddard added New Gold is also looking for business opportunities locally.
“We hired a business development manager and his role is to try to find business development opportunities in the communities, both Aboriginal and non-aboriginal local communities,” he voiced. “Obviously hiring personnel is one way you contribute to the community and having contract work and other suppliers [creates] indirect employment.
“But the more we can help develop businesses that maybe didn’t exist before in the area or see them joint-venture or expand, that brings more capacity and skills or opportunities to maybe supply to different industries or other mining area as they develop in the future,” Goddard remarked.
“We know the mine will be here 14-15 years, it might be a little longer which is great, but it’s not going to be here 50, 60, or 100 years, so when we leave we want to make sure that people were glad we were here; that we left something,” he voiced. “It’s hugely important to us.”
Goddard indicated work behind the scenes and at the mine site is ongoing.
“Detailed engineering continues,” he said. “We’re still working in our Vancouver and Oakville offices on the plant. That’s the biggest thing we need to finish and we’re progressing very well on the detailed engineering.”
Goddard noted out at the site, clearing and grubbing is going on.
He stressed the project is moving along on schedule and was not “delayed” six months as people seem to think.
“We had 24 month schedule that has us starting up at the end of 2016 and we changed it to a 30 month schedule, so now we’re starting up in the second quarter of 2017,” he stated.
“We extended it six months, but we didn’t change the start date . . . All we’re doing is spreading it out,” he reasoned, citing gold prices are currently down from where they were.
“We fund this project ourselves, we don’t borrow money for it,” he voiced. “So we said let’s just be prudent and spread it out to recognize the global pricing and the market conditions.
“We can always move things a little bit earlier if we need to,” he added. “It gives us a little more time to do a few different things.”
Goddard explained all projects are about planning and then the execution.
“So for us in operations, part of our job is major equipment assembly and open pit development,” he said. “So we have to actually put the equipment together and develop mine and get everything ready so we can feed the mill . . .
“But the key for us, is we’re getting our first piece of equipment arriving in August and September, trucks and shovels and so on, and we have to start hiring a few people for that,” he noted.
“And then our ramp up for pit development starts in January and continues right through, so we will be over hundred [employees] and then hiring more later in 2016,” Goddard continued.
“By the time we’re in 2017, and the mill is getting ready for commissioning, we’ll essentially be around 400-plus people,” he added.
“So it’s really happening.”
