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DIGGING THE FUTURE From drones to electric vehicles, Saskatchewan blazes new trails in mining technology JOEL SCHLESINGER

The mine of the future will be battery powered — and in Saskatchewan, that future has already arrived.

Leading the way is a small but ambitious Saskatoon-based firm called PMP (Prairie Machine and Parts).

“We actually have the most advanced underground electric vehicle program in the world for mining,” says Luke Mason, business development manager with PMP. “In fact, Canada as a country is at the forefront of the implementation of electric vehicles for mining.”

Saskatchewan potash producers have been the vanguard of this technology since PMP got into the electric vehicle business after it saw one in use a couple of years ago.

“We’re the No. 1 supplier for mining systems in Saskatchewan, and we saw an electric vehicle drive by at a mine we were visiting and thought, ‘That’s a game-changer,’ ” he says.

The vehicle was built by a small startup called PapaBravo Innovations, also based in Saskatoon.

PMP ended up buying the company.

Saskatchewan’s mining industry has long been a leader in innovation, whether it’s implementing technology such as drones for aerial surveying, or developing new techniques for production.

Pioneering new ideas is simply part of the fabric of the province’s industry, says Carey Hyndman, spokeswoman with Cameco, one of the world’s largest producers of uranium.

The Saskatoon-based firm’s Cigar Lake mine in northern Saskatchewan exemplifies that penchant for thinking outside the box.

At the world’s highest-grade uranium mine, the company employs new techniques and technologies in one of the most challenging underground environments in the world, she says.

“Cameco is unable to use traditional mining methods to access the ore.”

To deal with the problems presented by the deposit’s geology, it developed a new, non-entry mining method, using a jet boring system.

“Because the deposit is found within sandstone that is water-bearing, we had to do bulk ground freezing to stabilize the formation.”

Years of trial and error were needed to get the process just right. A machine bores through dry rock beneath the deposit to create production tunnels. Then the jet boring system moves though the tunnels, drilling pilot holes into the frozen ore.

Then a jet-boring nozzle is inserted into the pilot holes and a high-pressure stream of water is shot into the ore to break it apart

A giant jet-boring unit at Cameco’s Cigar Lake mine is at the heart of a complicated process to tease high-grade uranium ore out of one of the most challenging mining environments in the world. CA ME CO

to be taken to the surface.

Key to the process is limiting the exposure of workers to the ore, Hyndman says.

“All of this was developed to deal with the challenging geology, but it also offers radiation protection advantages, as interaction with the high-grade ore is minimized.”

Other firms are innovating by adopting existing technologies developed for non-mining applications.

Westmoreland Coal Co. in the southeast part of the province uses drones to take aerial photographs that are fed into 3D modelling software. The technology saves time and money because it’s faster than other methods, such as surveying on foot using GPS. Moreover, drones help increase accuracy, which also reduces costs, one of its engineers told Ore magazine, published by the Saskatchewan Mining Association.

The Saskatchewan industry’s ingenuity is being incorporated into mines elsewhere in Canada. PMP is working with multinational mining firms Goldcorp and Glencore in hard rock mines in Ontario.

“The deeper you mine, the greater the advantage of electric vehicles,” Mason says.

Conventional mining vehicles have diesel engines, and the particulates from exhaust are known

carcinogens, presenting ventilation challenges.

“With very deep mines, the cost of ventilation is astronomical,” he says. “You have to pump a certain amount of air underground to ventilate these mines, and Ontario has some of the deepest mines in the world.”

So far, PMP has been building smaller vehicles that will transport workers.

One of its competitive advantages over larger manufacturers is that it builds electric vehicles from the ground up. They’re designed and constructed to be battery powered — a rarity in the industry. Most other electric vehicles, including trucks that haul ore, are

(Underground mining is) some of the most demanding and extreme applications for vehicles in the world.

designed for diesel powertrains and have to be modified to become electric vehicles.

“Most of the industry right now is focused on converting diesel equipment into electric,” Mason says. “The advantage we have had is that we started with an electric vehicle.”

Moreover, PMP has been working on the technology longer than most because the firm it acquired, PapaBravo, had its first prototype in a working mine in 2010.

Already about 100 PMP vehicles are in use in every underground potash mine in Saskatchewan. And the technology is now garnering interest from potential customers from around the globe.

“I don’t like to use the term, but yes we are ‘the Tesla’ of underground mining,” Mason says, referring to the electric automobile maker. “But in underground mining, there are all these different challenges that Tesla would never face. It’s some of the most demanding and extreme applications for vehicles in the world.”

Of course rising to the challenge is nothing new.

“Saskatchewan, in general, has been pushing the envelope for technology, and applications and systems to mine for decades,” Mason says. “It’s just something we’re known for the world over.”

INSIDE P RO S P E C T S

Hope unearthed in the mining sector M2 P O TA S H

Companies sowing the seeds of future growth M4-5 E X P L O R AT I O N

Uranium tops list for investment cash M9 SA F E T Y

Skills competition prepares first responders for disaster M13

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Kenneth Green

Province attractive to mining investors Resources, policies good for business NA D I A M O H A R I B

Investors really dig Saskatchewan and its mining industry, according to a recent Fraser Institute survey that ranked the province as the world’s No. 1 jurisdiction for investment.

In an annual survey released in February, the conservative-leaning, Vancouver think-tank gave Saskatchewan top marks for its competitive tax regime, efficient permitting procedures and certainty surrounding environmental regulations and land claims, among other factors.

Kenneth Green, the Fraser Institute’s senior director of natural resources, says Saskatchewan has been in a good position for several years in the annual Survey of Mining Companies, trading back and forth with Manitoba for top spot.

“The goal is to create a scorecard that identifies the attractiveness to investment,” Green says. “Uncertainly is the biggest thing that repels and deters investment. Mining investors really find uncertainty in policy to be toxic to the desire to invest.”

Both a region’s mineral endowments and its public policy factors are components of the index.

The survey’s message to Saskatchewan?

“It tells them they’re doing things right, so they need to maintain various things they are doing in order to continue to be attractive to investors,” Green says.

“They also need to be aware of jurisdictions in competition with them. And they can’t rest on their laurels.”

While Saskatchewan took the pinnacle position on investment attractiveness, it ranked second to the Republic of Ireland on the survey’s policy perception index.

Saskatchewan’s placement in the survey speaks to collaboration and commitment, says Al Shpyth, executive director the Saskatoonbased International Mineral Innovation Institute, a non-profit organization representing government, industry, academics and researchers.

“Saskatchewan is one of the few places where you can sit down with government and academic partners and help find innovative solutions.”

Saskatchewan Mining Association president Pam Schwann says the province’s No. 1 ranking among 104 jurisdictions on the investment attractiveness index is the result of a number of factors.

They include world-class mineral deposits, confidence the industry has in timely and predictable government policies and regulation, as well as public support which, in the association’s recent polling, showed a 97 per cent backing of mining operations, she says.

Cory Hughes, executive director of mineral policy with the province’s Ministry of Economy, says the nod is nice.

“This is really positive feedback to the government of Saskatchewan that we’re on the right path and we want to continue to strive to improve and hold onto the ranking for the foreseeable future,” he says.

“We’ve never been No. 1 in the world,” he says. “We’ve been No. 2 for the two previous years and prior to that always done well.”

Manitoba ranked second in the 2017 Fraser Institute survey followed by Western Australia, which fell from first to third.

Venezuela, the Chubut and Mendoza provinces in Argentina, Afghanistan, La Rioja in Spain, India, Zimbabwe and Mozambique were at the bottom of the rankings.

Dr. Ulrich Lamp, president and CEO of K+S Potash Canada, unveils the new name of the $4.1 billion mine earlier this month. The Bethune Mine is Saskatchewan’s first new potash operation in a generation. The company plans to bring the massive solution mine into production this quarter. T ROY FLEE CE

Mining CEOs see better days ahead after years of tough belt-tightening Companies finally rebounding from closures, layoffs A L E X M AC PH E R S O N

Last month two of Saskatchewan’s largest mining companies reported quarterly earnings that suggest that difficult cost-cutting measures are taking effect.

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. said its decision to close the Picadilly mine in New Brunswick and scale back production at its Cory mine near Saskatoon allowed it to earn US$149 million in the first three months of the year — up 99 per cent from the same period in 2016.

Cameco Corp., meanwhile, recorded an $18 million first-quarter loss but said its decision one year ago to shutter the Rabbit Lake uranium mine and make cuts at its other operations reduced its costs by around 30 per cent — enough to position it for when “unsustainable” uranium prices recover.

“It hasn’t been easy, I will freely admit that,” Cameco president and chief executive officer Tim Gitzel told the Saskatoon StarPhoenix in April. “Six years is a long time to be in a down market. But that’s where it’s at. We can’t control the market.

All we can control is how the company operates in it. … We’re going to work our way through this.”

Gitzel told the Business News Network that the fundamentals for uranium pricing have begun to improve. He noted there are 57 nuclear power reactors under construction in the world, including in China, South Korea, Russia and India.

In Japan, where the entire nuclear power industry was shut down after the 2011 tsunami and reactor disaster at Fukushima, applications have been filed to restart 26 reactors. Three have restarted and he expects another four or five by year end.

Gitzel also saw progress on the pricing front, following the Rabbit Lake closure and 10 per cent production cuts in Kazakhstan.

“We’re finally getting to see some supply discipline, which is good,” he said.

While the province’s key potash producers — PotashCorp, Mosaic Co. and Agrium Inc. — maintain that demand for the fertilizer product will grow alongside global demand for food, prices have fallen by around 75 per cent since 2008 due to oversupply.

PotashCorp responded by shifting production to its low-cost operations such as Rocanville in southeast Saskatchewan. That meant 2016 was bracketed by its decisions to shutter Picadilly and cut production — as well as 140 jobs — from its Cory mine west of Saskatoon.

“I can say with conviction that this has been one of the most difficult years in the (company’s) his-

Cameco president Tim Gitzel announces the closing of the Rabbit Lake uranium mine in April 2016. Some 400 jobs were lost but the move helped Cameco slash its costs by 30 per cent. MORGAN MODJESKI

You can either sit and wait (and see) whether or not the storm passes around you, or you look how you can be more competitive in that environment.

JOCHEN TILK, president and CEO, PotashCorp

tory,” PotashCorp president and CEO Jochen Tilk told the Saskatoon StarPhoenix in January, after reporting a 74 per cent drop in earnings to US$336 million in 2016.

PotashCorp isn’t the only company in the sector to cut costs. BHP Billiton has said it won’t bring its massive Jansen mine into production until after 2020, while Mosaic — which runs three of Saskatchewan’s 10 potash mines — shut down its Colonsay operation for six months.

More recently, Agrium and PotashCorp unveiled plans to merge into a single, diversified US$26 billion company with around 20,000 employees, a decision Tilk said was aimed at increasing competitiveness in response to

“fierce” market conditions.

“You can either sit and wait (and see) whether or not the storm passes around you, or you look how you can be more competitive in that environment,” Tilk told the StarPhoenix in September, echoing other mining executives’ statements about the need to be proactive in tough times.

The effects of flatlining potash prices were not confined to the mining companies. Firms that support the industry found themselves short of work, while the government attributed the $685 million hole in its 2017-18 budget to crumbling potash and oil royalties — fees paid by producers to the province.

Cameco responded to prices that have fallen more than 60 per cent since 2011 by cutting costs and moving production to low-cost mines such as Cigar Lake. The strategy entailed closing the Rabbit Lake mine, at the cost of more than 400 jobs, and dozens of positions at its Saskatoon headquarters and other mining operations.

However, the picture was brighter for some of the industry’s smaller companies, including the owner of Saskatchewan’s only producing gold mines.

On May 18, 2016, Claude Resources Inc. shareholders voted in favour of a takeover by Vancouver-based Silver Standard Resources Inc. The $450 million offer highlighted the company’s ability to transform itself from a struggling miner into a tempting takeover target. The turnaround was due to factors such as favourable exchange rates and what its president and CEO Brian Skanderbeg described as the quality of its Santoy gold deposit at its Seabee operation near La Ronge.

“It does give developers and entrepreneurs some encouragement that they can duplicate what (Claude Resources’ first CEO) Bill

MacNeill and others did with the Seabee mine in Saskatchewan,” former Claude Resources CEO Neil McMillan told the StarPhoenix after the deal was approved.

That optimism has affected several smaller potash companies that are working to establish their own greenfield projects in the province, in spite of the persistently weak prices.

Encanto PotashCorp is working toward raising the $3 billion it needs to build a mine on Muskowekwan First Nation, which would be the first of its kind in Canada.

Gensource PotashCorp, meanwhile, is pushing ahead with a joint venture aimed at “disrupting” the existing potash marketing model.

At the same time, K+S Potash Canada is finishing construction at its $4.1 billion Legacy mine near Bethune — Saskatchewan’s first new potash operation in a generation — and plans to bring the massive solution mine into production this quarter.

Shore Gold Inc., another industry veteran, is continuing to develop its Star-Orion-South diamond project near Prince Albert despite the challenges created by a group of shareholders determined to shake up its board of directors and the long process of winning environmental approval for the mine.

Another bright spot was news that Saskatchewan leads the world in terms of its investment attractiveness, according to the Fraser Institute’s 2016 survey of mining and exploration companies, the results of which were released in February.

The survey of about 2,700 firms also found that Saskatchewan ranked second, behind the Republic of Ireland, in terms of its “policy climate,” which the Fraser Institute said affects investment. Over the last five years, the province has ranked high in the annual survey.

EDITOR’S NOTE: SASKATCHEWAN MINING REPORT WAS PRODUCED BY POSTMEDIA CONTENT WORKS AS A RESULT OF ADVERTISERS’ INTEREST IN THIS TOPIC. ADVERTISERS WERE NOT GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO PUT RESTRICTIONS ON THE CONTENT OR REVIEW IT PRIOR TO PUBLICATION. PROJECT PRODUCER: DARREN OLEKSYN, DOLEKSYN@POSTMEDIA.COM.

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MILESTONES & MERGERS Potash producers look forward to bullish future with rising demand and new projects PAU L S I N K EW I C Z

Production at K+S Potash Canada’s $4.1-billion solution mine near Bethune, above and below, is expected to begin in June. It’s expected to produce two million tonnes.

As they wrestle with low prices and a giant new mine opening this year, potash producers say they are merely keeping up with long-term demand for their commodity.

Helping meet that demand will be K+S Potash Canada’s $4.1-billion 20-cavern solution mine near Bethune. The mine, which will produce two million tonnes, took another step toward production earlier this month when it was handed over to the operations team at a special ceremony. Known as its Bethune mine, production of its first marketable tonne of potash is expected to begin in June.

“With our new location, we are making a huge step forward in the internationalization of our potash business,” said Norbert Steiner, chairman of the K+S board of directors, in a release on May 2, the day of the ceremony. “Bethune enables us to participate in future market growth, reduce our average production costs and strengthen our international competitiveness, which will benefit the entire K+S Group.”

It was a big step for K+S Potash Canada, which came to Saskatchewan in 2011. Construction of the Legacy Project began in June 2012.

This past March the company took possession of its first batch of 177 custom-built railway cars.

When all 531 cars are delivered, the company will have three full trains able to cycle between the mine and its storage facility in Port Moody, B.C. The Bethune mine is the largest single project in the history of K+S and creates more than 400 permanent jobs in Canada.

Steffen Brill, KSPC senior manager in logistics and transportation, said in a release that the 531 rail cars will be sufficient to meet initial requirements for transportation to Port Moody, but additional cars will be required as production starts to ramp up later in the year.

“Once the trains arrive at our facility in Port Moody, they will be unloaded by automatic conveyor to our warehouse or directly onto a ship at one of the world’s most

modern potash handling facilities,” said Brill. “From there, they’ll be shipped to regions worldwide.”

Another Saskatchewan potash producer marked a milestone in 2017 when The Mosaic Company struck pay dirt.

Mosaic has been sinking its new K3 shaft at its Esterhazy mine, 220 kilometres northeast of Regina, since 2013. Earlier this year the $3-billion project hit potash.

“We hit potash at our K3 project on Feb. 16, and that’s been the work of five years, and so now we are focused on horizontal mine development,” says Sarah Fedorchuk, senior director of public affairs with Mosaic. “It’s going to be the biggest mine in the world, so we obviously have a lot of faith that the long-term fundamentals of our business are there, and we plan on being in Saskatchewan for a long time.”

Like other potash miners in the province, Mosaic has faced a delicate balancing act as it increases capacity while trying to keep costs low in an environment where the price of potash has plummeted from record highs of nearly US$900 per tonne in 2008 to its current price of about $214 per tonne.

Last summer, Mosaic shut down its Colonsay mine east of Saskatoon, putting 330 workers out of work for six months.

“Having a temporary shutdown like we did last year is never an easy decision, and we realize that we’re impacting employees and their families, and it’s not something we take lightly,” says Fedorchuk. “But we were able to bring our employees back earlier than originally anticipated, and the mood is good.”

In fact, she says the mood is good for all Mosaic employees in the province for two reasons: the firm’s continued connection with the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders through the sponsorship of the new Mosaic Stadium in Regina, and because the company continues to grow, as evidenced by its US$2.5-billion purchase of Vale’s fertilizer assets in South America.

Mosaic will acquire mines and fertilizer plants in Brazil and Peru,

PH OTOS : TROY FL EE CE

With our new location, we are making a huge step forward in the internationalization of our potash business.

NORBERT STEINER, chairman, K + S P o t a s h C a n a d a’s board of directors

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REIGN OVER POTASH

Mosaic’s mine at Esterhazy is one of the investments that will help the company keep up with PotashCorp as one of the world’s top two fertilizer firms.

plus control of Vale’s proposed solution mine project in Saskatchewan, near Kronau.

Fedorchuk remains optimistic about the long-term outlook for potash and Mosaic’s investment in expanding its capacity. “I think that population growth continues to happen and we have a lot of really exciting markets that are still developing for potash,” she says.

“But with that, we have new entrants coming online as well.

I think the industry is just so much more global than it used to be. We’re not just looking at our competition in North America, but worldwide, and I think the important thing for us is to remain competitive in the market while still being really great community partners here in Saskatchewan.”

Mosaic’s investments will help it keep pace with Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan as one of the top two fertilizer companies in the world.

PotashCorp announced last September that it will merge with Agrium Inc. in a mega-deal worth US$26 billion. PotashCorp operates mines in Rocanville, Allan, Lanigan, Cory and Patience Lake, with a shuttered mine in New Brunswick. It has nitrogen, ammonia, urea and phosphate assets.

Jochen Tilk, president and CEO, told the Global Agriculture & Chemicals conference in March that the merger was a chance to combine assets to make a stronger company. “So the strategic benefit was quite compelling. ... But at the same time, we can see that the combined company can deliver

about $500 million annually of synergies, and we’re committed to delivering those synergies within two years of closing this transaction. And that’s about 20 per cent of value creation that we deliver.”

The company is still awaiting approval for the deal from four of the six countries to which it applied, but Tilk expects them to finish their reviews and for the deal to close sometime in 2017.

Despite new mines and major expansions coming online in Saskatchewan and Russia, Tilk said he sees demand for potash keeping pace with the new capacity for the next five years. He said PotashCorp is forecasting 61 million to 64 million tonnes will be shipped worldwide in 2017, up from 60 million in 2016.

It’s going to be the biggest mine in the world, so we obviously have a lot of faith that the long-term fundamentals of our business are there, and we plan on being in Saskatchewan for a long time.

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“We look at an increase of 1.5 million tonnes every year, which gets us to approximately to 70 million tonnes of demand by the year 2021,” said Tilk. “So it’s a trajectory that is consistent with the past, and one that we think is actually balancing supply and demand over time reasonably well.”

Planning for future demand for potash is the entire focus of BHP Billiton in Saskatchewan. The firm is US$3 billion into its project to sink two shafts at its Jansen Lake mine, 150 kilometres southeast of Saskatoon. When those shafts — now at the depth of 700 metres — are done, it will have spent US$3.8 billion. Then it will turn its attention to surface construction.

A main building, loading facilities and rail lines will take four to five years to complete.

Chris Ryder, head of corporate affairs for BHP in Saskatchewan, says it will be more than a year before that decision goes to the board. In the meantime, BHP is celebrating getting through the Blairmore aquifer, successfully implementing an automated shaft lining process, and continuing to pump $200 million into the Saskatchewan economy with 400 to 600 employees split between the head office in Saskatoon and the mine site.

“The focus for the next year is going to be on completing the feasibility study, continuing to sink the shafts and managing the site,” Ryder says. “The team’s working very hard on the feasibility study over the next year or so, and that’s when they’ll finalize the overall costs.”

The ultimate plan is to create a mine that produces eight to 10 million tonnes of potash each year.

But it won’t approach that output until well after 2020.

“It’s no secret that the potash market is in oversupply right now,” says Ryder. “There’s some more supply coming on, both here and in Russia, so the world probably doesn’t need another potash mine right now, but we’re confident in the long-term fundamentals of the potash market. Demand continues to grow.

“It’s going to take a few years to catch up to supply, and once it does, that’s the market we want to be ramping our production up to serve.”

The Mosaic Company Ready for the ‘Next 50’

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The new K3 project hit potash in Esterhazy, marking a significant milestone for the Company and Province.

Mosaic President and CEO, Joc O’Rourke says the company’s ‘win and grow’ strategy is on display 3,350 feet below the surface in Esterhazy at its new K3 mine.

On February 16, 2017, Mosaic’s new production shafts hit potash. The major milestone comes after nearly five years of intensive shaft sinking through the various geological formations in East Central Saskatchewan to reach one of the richest and largest known potash deposits in the world.

A cycle of drilling, blasting and mucking is used to sink the two 20’ diameter shafts.

Freezing technology helps controls water inflow. An excavator suspended from a platform known as a Galloway removes blasted muck with a large bucket, carrying the material to the surface. As the shaft sinks, it is lined accordingly depending on the geology encountered. The work was completed by Mosaic’s shaft sinking partners, Hatch and AMC. Hitting the potash ore zone is an impressive accomplishment. It’s been nearly 50 years since the last new production shaft has been sunk in Saskatchewan. Mosaic currently operates the K1 and K2 mines in Esterhazy. Mosaic’s K1 mine (formerly IMC) hit potash on June 8, 1962, and K2 was completed in 1967. In 1985, the K2 mine experienced brine inflow. That’s when salt water leaks into a mine, causing increased cost and risk.

In response to long-term market fundamentals and to decrease risk, in 2009 the company announced its intentions to build a new mine in Esterhazy. In 2011, shaft sinking began, and by 2015, Mosaic’s Board of Director’s greenlit an accelerated timeline for the project.

The first phase of construction focused on building the North headframe. Towering Mosaic’s Sr. VP, Potash- Bruce Bodine joins Executive VP & CFO- Rich Mack and CEO & President 384 feet above the prairie landscape, the building is the tallest between Winnipeg Joc O’Rourke underground on February 16, 2017 to witness K3 hit potash and Calgary.

The head frame houses two massive hoists – the Koepe and Blair, with skips that will bring potash to the surface from a kilometer underground. The Koepe hoist will move 60-ton skips capable of lifting ten million short tons of potash per year. The Blair hoist will carry a cage for people and equipment.

K3’s full design production capacity is for 6.3 million tonnes of product or 19 million ore tonnes per year. Mosaic’s Esterhazy operations currently produce about 17 million ore tonnes per year. Upon completion of K3, Mosaic’s Esterhazy operation is expected to be the largest, most competitive underground potash mine in the world.

Keeping a multi-billion dollar project of this magnitude on target isn’t easy. O’Rourke says its talented people that have got the company to this major milestone. “I’m very proud of the team here in Esterhazy – successfully managing a project of this scale takes incredible leadership. Where other companies have historically struggled, we’ve succeeded. We have some of the best people in the industry working on K3.”

Leading the skilled team of employees and contract partners is Mosaic’s Vice President Capital & Engineering- Potash, Gerry Couture. Having just surpassed 25 years with the company, Couture knows how important the project is to Mosaic’s future and the Esterhazy community. “I feel privileged to be part of K3, knowing that the infrastructure we’re building today will be here well into the future. We have generations of employees who are part of our Esterhazy operations and that tradition is going to continue for so many, including my family.”

Lawrence Berthelet, Director of Capital Expansion for K3 is another example of a generational Mosaic employee. His father, Remi, worked for Utah Construction in 1958 and Mosaic’s predecessor IMC in 1960 during the first shaft sinking. He was IMC’s 26th employee. “The K3 project brought me back home to Esterhazy. I have two sisters, a brother-in-law and cousins that all work for Mosaic at K1 and K2. For us, potash is a family affair.”

While the process for sinking the new shafts might not be all that different from Remi’s time – the level of safety is much higher. Mosaic is coming off its fourth consecutive year of record safety performance. It’s easy to see why families continue to work for Mosaic. Employees have great trust that their loved ones will be provided with the best safety procedures, equipment, and training.

An injury-free workplace is a top priority across all of Mosaic’s operations. From the start, safety has driven the K3 project’s planning, set-up, and execution. This is demonstrated through the Safe Start program and the Incident and Injury Free programs. These efforts have led to world-class safety performance.

Hitting potash marks a literal ‘turning point’ for the project. Couture, Berthelet and their teams have moved from vertical shaft sinking to horizontal mine development that starts with cutting a 400-foot pass between the North and South shafts.

Hitting potash in Esterhazy during the first shaft sinking in 1962

Much of the required infrastructure will be added to the shafts, including lowering equipment to be reassembled for development and future production.

On the surface, the temporary South shaft structure will be replaced with a 300’ permanent slip-form cement head frame. Currently, an overland conveyor system is being built that will transport ore from K3 to the existing K2 mill.

“K3 is the foundation of Mosaic’s future for potash production. Not only will it be a world-class operation, it drastically reduces our cost and risk, making us even more competitive as a global crop nutrient supplier,” says O’Rourke. “K3 demonstrates our commitment to the long-term sustainability of our operations and the vision we have for our potash operations in Saskatchewan.”

Work on the project will continue into 2024, but the impact of the project will last for decades. “We have a long and proud legacy in Esterhazy. For more than fifty years, we’ve managed to overcome incredible challenges and find great success a kilometre underground. We’re ready for the next fifty years and beyond,” O’Rourke adds.

To learn more about Mosaic’s K3 project, visit mosaicco.com/K3.

This story was provided by Mosaic for commercial purposes.

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BY THE NUMBERS

$13,500,000,000 Amount invested in building or expanding potash mines in Saskatchewan since 2006.

1 Saskatchewan’s world ranking as a jurisdiction for mining investment.

2 Saskatchewan’s ranking

among world’s uranium producers, after Kazakhstan.

$3,900,000,000

Estimated value of potash produced in Saskatchewan in 2016.

8,900,000

Minimum number of tonnes of potash sales forecast by Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan in 2017.

238.02891 Atomic mass of the most common isotope of uranium.

83% Proportion of Saskatchewan residents who agree that the mining industry provides good job opportunities.

100,000,000

Number of electric cars the world will need between now and 2030 to meet Paris climate accord targets.

$1,120,000,000 Estimated value of uranium produced in Saskatchewan in 2016.

350,000 Number of

typical cars it would take to produce the amount of carbon dioxide diverted by the carbon capture plant at Boundary Lake Dam.

$126,100,000

Estimated value of gold produced in Saskatchewan in 2016.

1880 Year the first

commercial coal mine opened in Saskatchewan at Roche Percee.

1916 First major gold discovery near Amisk Lake.

1942 First deep potash

discovery, in a core sample from an oil and gas well near Radville.

$193,000,000

Projected spending in Saskatchewan in 2017 for mineral exploration and appraisal.

Compiled by Bruce White Sources: Natural Resources Canada, Saskatchewan Ministry of the Economy, Fraser Institute, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, Jefferson Lab, Fast Consulting, International Energy Agency, SaskPower, Saskatchewan Mining Association

Silver Standard has made a number of changes to the Seabee mine that has led to increased production. SILVER STANDAR D R ESOURCES INC.

Gold miner Silver Standard looking to expand reserves New joint venture option agreement will involve exploring 33,993-hectare project PAU L S I N K EW I C Z

Carl Edmunds is going to do a little gold prospecting this summer.

The chief geologist for Silver Standard Resources Inc. is planning an exploration program in an area adjacent to his firm’s Seabee and Santoy mine holdings.

Silver Standard acquired Claude Resources Inc., and its two gold mines, for $450 million in May 2016. Located about 125 kilometres northeast of La Ronge, the sites are Saskatchewan’s only producing gold mines.

The Vancouver-based firm signed a joint venture option agreement with Eagle Plains Resources Ltd. to explore its 33,993-hectare Fisher project a few months after acquiring Claude Resources.

Edmunds says Eagle Plains’ Tim Termuende contacted him about the potential of the project shortly after Silver Standard came to the province.

“He basically told us that they had a land position adjacent to Seabee, that was of considerable size and contained the extensions of the same geology that’s present at Seabee,” says Edmunds.

Termuende also told Edmunds that the area also had numerous gold occurrences and that a limited amount of exploration in the 1980s and 1990s had indicated there were interesting grades and widths found by early test drilling.

“So it was checking off the boxes for me,” says Edmunds. “That’s what drew me to doing the option.”

Under that deal, Silver Standard can spend $4 million on exploration over the next four years in

exchange for a 60 per cent stake in the project. It will then have a one-time option to buy an additional 20 per cent for $3 million.

“We have a crew of three geologists and somewhere between four and six assistants who will be working on it this summer. And they’ll be focused primarily on the existing showings and that extension of the Santoy shear zone,” says Edmunds.

At the European Gold Forum in April, Paul Benson, president and chief executive of Silver Standard, said the quality of the grades being mined since the Santoy mine opened a few years ago attracted him to the Claude Resources opportunity.

“It’s been in operation for 26 years, and probably the first 22 or 23 weren’t that worthwhile from a shareholder’s point of view, but there was a change in grade with the discovery of the Santoy deposit, and that’s what attracted us to that mine.”

He said the joint venture adds 150 per cent additional ground in the company’s operational area within trucking distance of the current plant.

“We expect to be investing significantly in drilling over the next three to five years, and hopefully past then,” said Benson.

Since acquiring Claude Resources, Silver Standard has increased the share of revenue stemming from its gold operations to about 70 per cent. In March, the company, which owns another gold mine in Nevada and a silver mine in Argentina, asked its shareholders to approve a change of name.

If it goes through, Saskatchewan’s only gold miner will be known as SSR Mining Inc. In the first quarter of 2017, the Seabee mill produced 21,023 ounces of gold, a seven per cent increase from the 19,711 ounces produced during the fourth quarter of 2016, primarily due to high-grade ore from the Santoy mine.

Mining efficiently, and controlling costs, is a huge focus for Silver Standard. It has been able to increase production, while shaving cash costs, since the purchase.

W. John DeCooman Jr., vicepresident of business development and strategy, says the company’s

It’s an area of expertise that I believe we’ve continued to differentiate ourselves by with the market.

Operational Excellence program can be credited with helping the Seabee/Santoy operation improve.

“I think a lot of it has to do with processes and the people that we have,” says DeCooman. “It’s an area of expertise that I believe we’ve continued to differentiate ourselves by with the market.

“If you look at Seabee and what we’ve done there, we have put primarily all of the human resources at the mine site, so that they are closest and most familiar with what’s going on. I think that’s had a lot of good, lasting impacts over the course of the last year in particular.”

In its first year, Silver Standard

has been able to increase its reserves at Seabee, in both tonnes and in grade, through changes in the drilling program and methodologies used to estimate the reserves. It has also worked diligently to find efficiencies in operating the plant.

“We’ve continually worked to find improvements and increases of throughput,” says DeCooman.

“So we did a trial back in the late summer of 2016 that demonstrated that the plant was able to process material at approximately 1,000 tonnes a day, which is about 15 to 20 per cent better than what it had been operating with historically.

“Our goal for 2017 is to run in excess of 900 tonnes a day, with the idea that we need to make improvements around mining and demonstrate that the ore faces would be available in order to support the larger throughput.”

He says a third area of improvement has been in achieving a couple percentage points of efficiency in plant recoveries, to about 98 per cent from historical levels of 95 and 96 per cent.

In the third quarter of 2017, he says Silver Standard is anticipating putting out a five-year plan that accounts for the various reserve, plant and mining improvements at the Seabee operation.

While a new owner and a year of changes can be stressful for employees, Edmunds says he’s seen a favourable response from the workforce, especially on the geology and exploration side of the business.

“It has been a game-changer for them,” he says. “The operation, previously being a one-mine company, would go through periods where funding was very tight for longer term activities. In my area we’re trying to build as long a future, with as high-quality resources, as we can, and that will spill over into reserves.

“Your whole planning platform for the operation changes when you’ve got a well-defined set of reserves that you can plan the underground development upon.”

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Canada’s industry ‘envy of the world’ TRADE SHOW

Supply chain forum urged to make most of new opportunities

Bits & bobs sold here

PAU L S I N K EW I C Z

Bill Whitelaw is bullish on opportunities for Canadian mining, and his message to the Saskatchewan firms that supply the industry is that they should be, too.

Whitelaw, executive vicepresident of the Northern Miner Group and InfoMine, gave the opening address to the 9th annual Saskatchewan Mining Supply Chain Forum in Saskatoon in early April.

The forum is sponsored by the Saskatchewan Mining Association, the Saskatchewan Ministry of the Economy and the Saskatchewan Industrial and Mining Suppliers Association. It is an opportunity for suppliers to the mining industry to make contacts with key players in the sector, show off their wares and participate in educational workshops.

Titled Beyond Saskatchewan’s Borders, Whitelaw’s presentation was aimed at prodding suppliers to extend their vision and look for more opportunities.

Especially, he said, now that there is some positive momentum in base and precious metals around the world thanks to increased productivity and innovation, if not commodity prices.

“Saskatchewan is recognized as one of the best investment jurisdictions in the world, and a huge part of that recognition is thanks to the quality of supply chain that we have,” Whitelaw said.

He invited suppliers to keep a watchful eye on the other jurisdictions of Canada where innovation is occurring, like Goldcorp’s use of an IBM supercomputer to crunch drill results data from Red Lake, Ont. The computer software recommends where to drill next and saves the company valuable time.

“That’s what capital likes to

Bill Whitelaw told April’s Saskatchewan Mining Supply Chain Forum that investment opportunities in the province are huge. E R I C A N D ER SON / S AS KATCH E WAN I N D U S TRI AL AN D M I N I NG S U PPL I E RS A S S OCI AT ION

Capital really has no conscience.

It wants to go to the place where it will have the best, and safest return.

And obviously this survey tells us that Saskatchewan is that place. hear, that we’re innovating on process and productivity. And everybody has an innovation that they’re adding to the supply chain,” said Whitelaw.

“The key is to not only know your own link, but to know the links that are two, three, four and five links beyond you, so that you

are actually part of a value proposition.”

Whitelaw said there are other facets of Canadian mining, and its supply chain, that we take for granted. These include sustainable mining practices, working with indigenous communities, mining education and a mature policy and regulatory system.

“These are incredible competitive advantages,” he said.

“We’re extremely well organized in terms of the voices we have, and we’re the envy of the world in the way our industry associations work with government, work with mining companies and work with suppliers.”

He said that is reflected in a recent Fraser Institute report that ranked Saskatchewan as the most attractive jurisdiction in the world for mining investment.

The Institute’s attractiveness index gives 60 per cent of its weight to the quality of the geology and minerals, and 40 per cent to the operating context, which weighs 15 factors including the supply chain.

“Capital really has no conscience. It wants to go to the place where it will have the best, and safest return. And obviously this

survey tells us that Saskatchewan is that place.”

Other jurisdictions around the world don’t take Canadian methods for granted, he said. Mining organizations in places like Botswana, Finland and Argentina have adopted the Mining Association of Canada’s Toward Sustainable Mining program.

“And there are many other organizations behind these three taking what we do in Canada — how we operate, how we think about the communities we serve, how we think about the diversity of stakeholders we serve, and doing things the Canadian way,” said Whitelaw.

“For you as suppliers, this is critically important, because you should be building this into your business plans. It should be reflected in how you bid on jobs, and how you serve the sectors that you serve.”

The upcoming Canadian Mining Symposium in London, England, will see some of the global giants of mining touting Canadian opportunities to 250 high-end investors from around the world, said Whitelaw.

Guest speakers will include Robert Friedland of Ivanhoe

The trade show part of the Saskatchewan Mining Supply Chain Forum showcases all the businesses that help to keep the mine machinery running.

There are purveyors of bits and bobs, booths that celebrate a better lubricant, or steel cables that last 10 per cent longer. Others offer the gravel and rebar needed for infrastructure construction.

One thing you see in spades at the trade show is that mining suppliers are problem solvers.

Saskatoon’s Croatia Industries Ltd. was showing its hand-held laser scanning technology, used to map out anything that needs fabricating. A damaged part can be scanned and rendered into a computer, for example, allowing a replacement to be tooled.

Paul Sinkewicz

Mines Ltd., David Garofalo of Goldcorp Inc., and Kevin Dushnisky of Barrick Gold.

If asked, Whitelaw said all of those mining notables would probably cite the quality of the supply chain as a major reason for Canada’s success in world rankings.

“They are recognized in the world as leaders for what they’ve done in mining, and they will be talking about why we are so good at what we do. The quality of Canadian mining investment opportunities is huge,” said Whitelaw.

“The opportunity is ripe for the supply chain to take advantage of all that investor interest.”

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CAN YOU DIG IT? Uranium tops the list of resources being targeted for exploration by mining companies tion of the Athabasca Basin. Cameco has reported it was awaiting better market conditions before moving further ahead on that front.

The minerals branch’s Hughes also lists Areva Resources Canada at its Midwest Deposit, “which is through the assessment process, as well as additional deposits at McClean Lake.”

While he says the provincial government hasn’t finalized the latest survey of uranium companies’ plans for exploration and development in 2017, there is a “very strong expression” of interest in the resource.

G ORD BROCK

When it comes to attracting investment for mineral exploration and development, uranium is the undisputed heavyweight champion of Saskatchewan.

Spending on the search for the metal that provides most of the world’s atomic energy has been No. 1 since 2012, when potash last led the way, according to recent figures from the province’s minerals regulator.

Exploration and development spending for uranium topped $136 million in 2015 and the final figure was expected to be higher in 2016. In contrast, preliminary figures show $70 million was spent on potash exploration, $14.5 million on diamonds and $3.7 million on gold in 2016.

“So there remains, despite low uranium prices, a lot of interest in our world-class uranium resources,” says Cory Hughes, executive director of mineral policy for the Saskatchewan Ministry of the Economy.

Investment in exploration is an indicator of where Saskatchewan’s next big mine developments will take place in the coming decades.

“There are a lot of identified world-class uranium deposits in the North. Right now, there isn’t the necessary demand for the development of those projects, but of course they’re moving forward in the process.”

Saskatchewan is the world’s second-largest uranium producer at 22 per cent of global supply.

Uranium production in the province last year totalled about 13,300 tonnes and came from three mines: McArthur River/ Key Lake, Cigar Lake/McClean Lake and Rabbit Lake, which was closed last spring. The total output for 2017 is expected to reach 13,900 tonnes.

Large exploration projects are underway in north-central Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin, where explorers have uncovered world-class deposits, Hughes says.

“The Patterson Lake area on the southwest side of the basin hadn’t had a lot of development until exploration firms like NexGen and Fission Uranium came along,” Hughes says. “Those two companies have identified hundreds of millions of pounds of uranium at very, very high grades comparable to the McArthur and Cigar deposits.”

NexGen Energy now holds the largest undeveloped deposit in Canada.

“Our flagship asset is the Arrow deposit, which is located in the southwest Athabasca Basin, approximately 155 kilometres north of La Loche,” says Travis McPherson, corporate development manager with the Vancouver-based company. Arrow is named after the village that is the closest populated area to the remote find.

So far the company says it has uncovered more than 450 million pounds of uranium and it continues to find more in the area.

Fission Uranium reports having discovered the Triple R deposit, a major near-ground find in its Pat-

P O TA S H

Current spending for potash exploration and development in Saskatchewan remains below half of peak levels — about $70 million in 2016, versus $170 million in 2012.

“We’ve gone through a major expansion of our potash capacity,” Hughes says.

K+S Potash is about to begin production at a new mine near Bethune, the Mosaic Co. is halfway through a 10-year expansion of its Esterhazy K3 mine and BHP

We’ve gone through a major expansion of our potash capacity.

Silver Standard Resources is spending about $5 million annually to explore its recently acquired Seabee Gold Operation and the nearby Santoy mine complex and adjacent Fisher land holding. S ILVER STANDAR D R ESOURCES

DIAMONDS & GOLD

There remains, despite low uranium prices, a lot of interest in our worldclass uranium resources. terson Lake South project, as well as two other deposits.

“So we have two world-class deposits moving through the evaluation phase,” Hughes says.

Also, at Wheeler River on the eastern edge of the Athabasca Basin, a joint venture led by Denison Mines has the Phoenix and Gryphon deposits. Denison also has 19 unsurveyed mineral claims totalling more than 11,700 hectares at Wheeler River. Denison reports a 60 per cent interest in the joint project, Cameco is in for 30 per cent and the remaining partner is JCU Canada Exploration Co. Ltd. Cameco also owns 70 per cent of the Millennium project discovered in 2000 on the southeastern por-

Billiton is also in the middle of its giant Jansen development.

Nevertheless, Hughes adds that “there remains a lot of interest in our potash resources and we are the largest potash producer in the world.”

A solution potash mine costing some $3.6 billion is being investigated by Yancoal and has made its way through the environmental assessment process. It’s believed to be moving toward an investment decision later this year on the project just north of Regina.

On a similar scale, Muskowekwan First Nation has formed a partnership with junior mining company Encanto to mine potash on its reserve for sale to India.

“And there are multiple other potash projects at different phases of exploration and evaluation,” Hughes says.

NexGen Energy’s Rook I site in northern Saskatchewan, above, which can accommodate more than 120 people and hosts the Arrow deposit and, centre, NexGen Energy’s office at its Rook I site. PH OTOS : N EX GEN ENERGY

The search for diamonds in northern Saskatchewan, which previously attracted more than $100 million in investments, has also declined to about $14.5 million in 2016. The gems remain the third-largest target for exploration and development in the province.

“Although we don’t have any diamond production, we are cautiously optimistic that we will be a diamond producer,” says Hughes.

East of Prince Albert in the Forta-la-Corne forest area, Shore Gold is working on environmental assessments and seeking investors to move ahead, Hughes says. Also, near the town of Hudson Bay, work continues on the North Arrow project where diamond-bearing kimberlites have been found.

Diamond giant De Beers was also active in the Athabasca Basin in search of kimberlites.

On the gold front, work continues at the long-producing Seabee Gold Operation that was acquired

by Silver Standard Resources last year.

Silver Standard’s budget of about $5 million annually for exploration at Seabee will target the mature Seabee mine, the nearby Santoy mine complex and the adjacent Fisher land holding, in which the company recently acquired an interest through a joint venture with Eagle Plains Resources.

“Last year, we continued to spend aggressively underground and increased the reserve at Seabee by 50 per cent — pleasingly also at a higher grade. So that’s enabling us to have a look at the mine plan,” says Paul Benson, president and chief executive officer of Silver Standard.

Another prospect for Silver Standard is the Amisk Lake property on Saskatchewan’s eastern flank. The holding contains a gold resource of 1.6 million ounces, but “that probably needs a higher gold price to move forward,” Benson says.

With files from Joel Schlesinger

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Muskowekwan Chief Reginald Bellerose, left, discusses a partnership with junior mining company Encanto Potash to build a mine on its reserve northeast of Regina. The company needs to raise $3 billion to finance the mine that will create hundreds of job opportunities. BRYAN S CHL OS SER

Mining industry serves as model of reconciliation across the nation Participation of First Nations people at a historic high at all levels of the sector PAULA ARAB

Aboriginal participation in Saskatchewan’s mining industry reflects a model of reconciliation that serves as an example for the rest of Canada, says the chief executive officer of an indigenous investment company involved in the sector.

“The mining community has been very good at providing opportunities for aboriginal people,” said Geoff Gay, CEO of Athabasca Basin Development. The company was started by and is co-owned by seven aboriginal communities in the Athabasca region.

“From observing elsewhere, the relationships and partnerships that the mines and aboriginal people have in the province are fairly strong in comparison to any other place in the country, and it’s growing,” he said.

“I think our aboriginal leadership is focused on the future, and mining companies are becoming more and more focused on partnerships and engaging with partners,” said Gay. Athabasca Basin Development was established in 2002 with the goal of maximizing local community participation in the opportunities arising from the mining industry. The seven largely Dene First Nations communities recognized that their territory on the Athabasca Basin sits on the world’s richest high-grade uranium deposits, creating opportunities for prosperity.

Today, the company’s investments have grown to include complete or partial ownership in businesses that provide a wide range of services, such as “skilled workforce supply, construction, electrical, security, drilling, aviation and more,” according to its website.

During its brief history, Athabasca Basin Development has witnessed aboriginal communities and people play an increasing and evolving role in the mining industry.

“We’ve been around for close to 20 years and we definitely see more involvement in the northern uranium mines and increased momentum in the potash mines in southern Saskatchewan,” says Gay. He notes that aboriginal workers are now getting higher paid positions with more responsibilities.

“There are more aboriginal employees who are taking on management positions, who are starting their own businesses, or who are working with management teams in the service sector of the mines,” he says. “I saw it 10 years ago, but it’s increasing.”

As well, he notes that more local First Nations community development corporations have been formed and are pursuing opportunities in mining.

Aboriginal participation at all levels of the industry is at a historic high, according to the Saskatchewan Mining Association. It estimates that just under half of mine site employees, including contractors, are of aboriginal ancestry. It

also calculates that mining employs more aboriginal people than any other sector in the province.

Participation is only likely to increase, with one of Canada’s largest mining companies committed to allocating even more of its local spending on “local aboriginal content.”

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan has long recognized aboriginal engagement as a key plank in its growth strategy. Along with many other mining companies operating in Saskatchewan, it acknowledges that almost all of the projects on the horizon have a footprint on traditional territory.Effective consultations, engagement and collaboration with regards to the development of these natural resources is crucial, as is the sharing in the prosperity such development brings.

“PotashCorp believes that investing in First Nations and Metis communities leads to their success and our success, indeed the success of this province. ... It is inextricably linked to ensuring we continue to meet our critical role in the world’s growing demand for food,” says the company’s Statement of Commitment to First Nations and Metis people.

The company supports initiatives and events that ensure aboriginal people and communities are aware of all opportunities for them at Pot-

The relationships and partnerships that the mines and aboriginal people have in the province are fairly strong in comparison to any other place in the country, and it’s growing.

G E O F F G A Y, C E O , Athabasca Basin Development

ashCorp, both as employees and suppliers. It also is committed to “supporting training and education measures that will position First Nations and Metis people to take advantage of these opportunities now and in the future.”

That commitment has reaped huge rewards, said Leanne Bel-

legarde, director of diversity and inclusion for PotashCorp.

“In the last five years, 11 per cent of our new hires have been voluntarily self-identified as First Nations and Metis people,” says Bellegarde. “They’re employed in positions all across our job categories.”

“In fact, in the last two years, as a result of a student-focused aboriginal internship program, 25 per cent of those new hires have been young First Nations and Metis people in the categories of engineering, business and IT.” By 2020, PotashCorp says at least 30 per cent of its local spending will be on “local aboriginal content” — either aboriginal suppliers or nonaboriginal suppliers who hire aboriginal employees or support local aboriginal initiatives in a variety of ways and investments, such as on education or training.

“We are already achieving about 12 per cent of our local spend,” says Bellegarde. “So we are confident that when we factor in all aspects of supplier spend on local aboriginal content, we will meet or exceed our goal of 30 per cent by 2020.”

Finally, more and more First Nations communities are forming partnerships for co-ownership with mining companies.

For instance, Muskowekwan First Nation has formed a partnership with junior mining company Encanto Potash to build a mine on its reserve northeast of Regina.

With two new 20-year-agreements to sell potash to India recently announced, the company needs to

Leanne Bellegarde

raise $3 billion to finance the mine.

Once built, which is expected to take three years, the mine will create hundreds of jobs and employment opportunities.

An agreement with the provincial and federal governments quickly followed, paving the way for construction. It will be the first project regulated under the First Nations Commercial and Industrial Development Act, which applies existing provincial rules to large-scale projects on First Nations land.

“FNCIDA works by essentially reproducing the provincial rules and regulations that apply to similar large-scale commercial or industrial projects off reserves and applying them to a specific onreserve project,” the company said in a statement issued last month.

“This approach, called incorporation by reference, ensures that both on- and off-reserve projects are subject to similar regulatory regimes, levelling the playing field.

It offers protection for Muskowekwan people, lands and environment and increases certainty for investors, developers and the public while minimizing costs.”

The milestone breaks “entirely new ground,” Muskowekwan Chief Reginald Bellerose said in an earlier statement.

The legislation not only ensures Muskowekwan’s role as a “significant resource player in Canada for generations to come, but paves the way for other First Nations to achieve self-source revenues and a self-dictated future full of promise.”

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The McArthur River uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan is one of the world’s largest and remains profitable even at today’s prices, according to industry experts. CAME CO COR P.

Better tomorrow awaits province’s uranium industry Producer remains ‘cautiously optimistic’ about what lies ahead in crucial sector JOEL SCHLESINGER

Saskatchewan’s uranium miners are looking to greener pastures even as prices for the metal remain in a six-year slump and global production has continued to rise.

Still, as the world’s second-largest producer of the key ingredient in nuclear energy, the province’s industry has remained optimistic, essentially chanting the same mantra year after year: A better tomorrow awaits.

The song remains unchanged this year.

“We feel cautiously optimistic about the future,” says Carey Hyndman, spokeswoman with Saskatoon-based Cameco, the largest publicly traded uranium producer in the world.

Production is set to decrease globally this year. That’s good news for prices, she adds. Moreover, utility companies operating reactors are expected to have an increased need for uranium.

Many have not entered into long-term contracts for uranium because of uncertain market conditions that have kept prices low since the 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan.

As a result, producers may see a slight increase in future demand.

All of this should bode well for Saskatchewan, which is home to

some of the highest quality and largest reserves in the world, as well as some of the most advanced mining operations.

“We have two mines, McArthur Lake and Cigar Lake, that are the world’s two largest uranium mines and that’s an advantage,” says Cory Hughes, executive director of mineral policy for the Government of Saskatchewan.

“And they’re certainly profitable even at today’s prices.”

Production in the province has been reaching all-time highs despite the slumping prices.

“The increase is in large part because the Cigar Lake mine, which opened in 2013, has ramped up to full production,” Hughes says.

Located in the province’s north, both mines are among the most technologically advanced in the world.

Cigar Lake, for example, features an innovative jet-boring technique specifically developed for the challenging geological features of the deposits.

As for the future of uranium, Saskatchewan’s Athabasca basin is a hotbed for investment in exploration. Covering about 100,000 square kilometres of the province and already home to significant production, many exploration firms are active in the area staking out new noteworthy finds.

Slurry is pulled from beneath the water by a bucket more than 400 metres underground at the Cigar Lake mine in northern Saskatchewan. It’s among the most technologically advanced mines in the world. G OR D WALDNER

The fundamentals are there for a strong and growing uranium industry, but it’s not going to happen overnight, either.

“There was about $130 million spent on uranium exploration last year,” Hughes says.

“That’s very high historically, and it’s been fairly consistent even since Fukushima.”

For producers, uranium remains a long game. While the spot price of about US$23 is a well above the

lows of the early 2000s when it was about $7 a pound, it’s still a far cry from its heyday when it traded at more than $130 a pound.

Uranium’s price is often tied to the price of oil.

It peaked in 2007 along with oil, as major energy consumers such as China and the United States began to look for less costly ways to meet energy needs. But then the financial crisis hit in 2008-09.

Prices did bounce back along with oil, but the Fukushima accident derailed the recovery.

Japan shut down much of its nuclear energy production in the years after the meltdown.

“They have had a difficult time bringing reactors back online,” Hughes says.

“They’re hoping to bring back a few more this year and eventually get back to that 20 range, maybe as many as 30 of their reactors.”

Having those operational would significantly boost the prospects of the industry in the short term.

But it’s the long view that has fuelled exploration and hopes in Saskatchewan. Hughes says about 60 reactors are under construction around the world, and hundreds more are in the planning stages.

“The fundamentals are there for a strong and growing uranium industry, but it’s not going to happen overnight, either.”

The planning and construction phases for reactors take several years. Moreover, the province has competition, including the world’s largest producer, Kazakhstan, and other nations with major reserves, such as Australia.

Still, Saskatchewan will play a critical role in the growth of nuclear energy, especially as nations look to reduce their carbon footprint to meet emissions targets laid out in the Paris Agreement, Hughes says.

The U.S. remains the province’s largest customer, but deals are now in place with China and India, which are the largest growth stories for the industry overall.

Challenges do remain, particularly with respect to funding as investors often look at the near-term price history instead of the longterm picture, he adds. Even major producers such as Cameco have faced difficulties of late, having to decrease the size of its workforce and mothball its Rabbit Lake mine.

“Those decisions have been made to deal with the current oversupply and the challenging market, ensuring we have a strong future here,” Hyndman says.

“We are optimistic as we see future demand from utilities that need to contract fuel to keep both existing and newly built reactors running into the 2020s, 2030s and beyond,” she adds.

“We see good opportunities for well-managed companies like Cameco that can weather the current market.”

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ROBOT HIGH Competitions teach students skills they’ll need for tomorrow’s careers NA D I A M O H A R I B

As a child, Mya Desmarais loved a friend’s stories about making robots and showcasing his creations at competitions around the world.

She didn’t really know what robots were, but Desmarais knew she wanted to build them.

“My parents would always joke with him, ‘Hey, can you make a robot that can clean up after our dog?’ and I thought, ‘I want to do stuff like that,’ ” she says.

In Grade 9, Desmarais joined a robotics class at school and this year the Yorkton Regional High School student was the only girl at the Skills Canada Saskatchewan robotics competition.

“My favourite part about the entire experience is seeing all the cool, little things we can do and what other peoples’ robots can do,” the 16-year-old says.

Building robots was long the domain of sophisticated post-secondary types. But now high school students are developing their own robots in places from Yorkton to the tiny northern village of Ile-ala-Crosse.

These young innovators have won prizes in the provincial and national competition and some teams have travelled as far as Sweden, Germany and Brazil to compete.

Yorkton high school robotics teacher Kevin Chiasson accidentally stumbled on to robotics eight years ago. For the carpenter hired to teach electrical skills, the learning curve was steep.

“I had absolutely no idea about robotics,” he confesses.

But he learned.

Dozens of students came out for an after-school robotics club and Chiasson introduced robotics courses in which students started with small robots that are relatively easy to build.

The competitions began with a win in the myRobot Rumble, a provincial student competition at Saskatchewan Polytechnic for students using the popular Parallax SumoBot building kits.

“In the past five years we have won five out of eight myRobot competitions and been to the nationals five times, winning four golds and a bronze,” Chiasson says.

In 2012, the school’s win in a national competition qualified the Yorkton students for world competition.

“In November of that year we went to Sao Paulo, Brazil, for World Skills Americas,” Chiasson says. “The students actually won the event.”

Was he surprised at the success?

“Oh, heck yeah. At that point, we were still in our infancy as a club.

We didn’t expect to win provincials, let alone the nationals, and to carry forth at international competition.

We are a high school competing against post-secondary institutions at an international level.”

Chiasson’s students excel because they are, shall we say, wired to want to learn.

“If you came into the club or my classes — you don’t find students sitting in the corner goofing off,” he says. “They are engaged.”

Beyond building machines, students glean important life lessons and skills relevant in the real world.

“This is not just a Lone Ranger kind of endeavour. Everything we do is in teams,” Chiasson says.

“Almost every day in the news there is something new about robotics. This is where the students are going to be employed ... maintaining, creating and programming them. It could be home electrical, it could be in industry or even the shop down the road.

These are skills that are going to be applicable to good jobs in the future.”

Pam Schwann, president of the Saskatchewan Mining Association president agrees that it is very valuable for students to dip into the robotics realm. To support that pursuit, the association sponsors a number of high school robotics teams.

She says robots are used extensively in the industry today and likely will play an increasingly large role in mines and other workplaces.

“So, they are preparing themselves for future careers, not just in mining,” Schwann says. “We are early adopters of technology.

We really encourage that participation by students and students becoming familiar with how robotics work and how they look in the workforce.”

More early adoption is taking place on the northwestern shore of Lac Ile-a-la-Crosse, where math and science teacher Dave Dalton admits he knew “absolutely nothing” about robotics before teaching it.

“They might not do it right, right away, and might mess it up and have to start over, but that’s the way life is,” Dalton says from Rossignol High School in Ile-a-la-Crosse. “I firmly believe anyone can pick up a robotics kit and succeed.”

That’s exactly what happened

They might not do it right, right away, and might mess it up and have to start over, but that’s the way life is. when Dalton and his students tackled a Parallax SumoBot project.

“The kit comes with a fairly standard base model you have to build, with a metal frame, programming board, a couple of little servo motors and a whole bunch of wires,” he says.

“We had no idea what we were doing, but had an instruction sheet. I kind of learned alongside the kids.”

The initial goal was to have “robots that moved,” but soon students were building bigger ones for Skills Canada competitions.

Dalton says lessons offered by robotics go beyond basic building to everything from problem solving to creativity, while competitions offer camaraderie and lessons from other students.

“Some of these kids start off really shy and then they get involved and open up and become an entirely different person,” Dalton says.

Yorkton Regional High School’s robotics team, including Shane Toma, Mya Desmarais, Matthew Breitkreuz and Blake Chiasson, with teacher Kevin Chiasson in back, competed at Skills Canada Saskatchewan.

Aiming to find ‘the sweet spot’ for carbon capture technology B R I A N BU RT O N

As one of the earliest adopters of carbon capture and storage, Saskatchewan is doing a big share of the heavy lifting needed to turn CCS into a commercially viable tool in the fight against global climate change.

The world’s first commercialscale CCS project began to operate at SaskPower’s Boundary Dam in 2014, more than a decade after the technology was proposed as a method to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from industrial emissions caused by burning fossil fuels.

The provincially owned utility refurbished one of six coal-fired steam boiler units and added amine-scrubber technology to capture and divert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

“CCS is a win for our customers, the environment and the provincial economy,” says Howard Matthews, SaskPower’s vice-president of production.

It’s hoped that retrofitting more coal-fired power plants with CCS will ensure low and predictable electricity prices and help industrial customers meet their carbon reduction goals, Matthews says.

Perfecting carbon capture and storage could also save Saskatchewan’s huge thermal coal resource from redundancy, protect 650 mining jobs and help to secure base load electricity to backstop renewable energy capacity. It also would boost provincial oil royalties through the use of recovered liquid CO2 in enhanced oil recovery by Cenovus Energy Inc. at Weyburn and Midale.

Matthews says that SaskPower remains committed to realizing

CCS’s potential, in spite of some early operational issues.

Rapid amine degradation during the first 12 months of operation reduced total CO2 recoveries to the point that SaskPower was forced to pay a $12-million penalty to Cenovus for missed deliveries of liquid CO2. But Matthews says a new activated carbon technology largely resolved the problem.

In 2016, its second full year of operation, the plant recovered about 800,000 tonnes of CO2, versus its design capacity of one million tonnes. But, he says, SaskPower’s

HOW CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE WORKS Last year, the Carbon Capture and Storage plant at SaskPower’s Boundary Dam removed 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) created by generating electricity from coal.

That’s about the same amount of CO2 that would be produced by almost 350,000 cars in Canada.

The extraction process works by exposing flue gases to amine, a derivative of ammonia. Carbon dioxide clings to the amine, which is piped away and heated, which causes the CO2 to separate from amine.

The amine is returned to the processor while the CO2 gas is liquefied and piped to Cenovus Energy’s Weyburn/ Midale oilfield. There, the CO2 is injected under pressure into oil formations more than a kilometre below the surface, where it acts as a solvent to remove oil stuck underground.

The freed oil is removed but the carbon dioxide remains trapped underground.

SaskPower, NRC

focus has now shifted away from merely maximizing carbon capture.

“We’re aiming to find the sweet spot between operating cost and CO2 production,” he says.

In June, a scheduled boiler shutdown will enable SaskPower to install extra heat exchangers that will eliminate the need to shut down the CCS plant when heat exchangers need cleaning.

Matthews notes that 40 per cent of the world’s electric power comes from coal, so there’s a vast need for carbon reduction and a huge potential market for CCS technology.

“There’s so much energy stored in coal and there’s so much potential for companies that can develop this technology,” he says.

SaskPower continues research and development work at its Carbon Capture Test Facility at the Shand coal-fired plant near Estevan. Ideas from Shand were instrumental in improving CO2 recoveries at Boundary Dam. And the utility’s CCS Knowledge Centre in Regina is sharing the lessons learned at Boundary Dam and Shand in order to stimulate global CCS deployment and technology advancement.

Global mining giant BHP Billiton of Melbourne, Australia, has agreed to contribute $20 million over five years to enhance access to SaskPower’s CCS data.

Meanwhile, Matthews says, the utility is negotiating with the Canadian government to amend federal regulations on coal-fired power plants that require conversion to CCS or shutdown by Dec. 31, 2019. SaskPower hopes to gain additional time for installing new CCS units.

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SASKATCHEWAN MINING REPORT

F R I D A Y, M A Y 2 6 , 2 0 1 7

BEYOND THE GAMES Rescue skills competition is action-packed, but no one forgets what’s really at stake, explains Nadia Moharib.

Emergency rescue crews will sit anxiously in lock-up waiting for “disaster” to unfold. And when it does, the games begin.

Teams of emergency responders from mines all over Saskatchewan showcase and practise their lifesaving talents in Saskatoon for one dynamic day on June 3 in the 49th Emergency Response and Mine Rescue Skills Competition.

As spectators arrive at the Prairieland Park grounds, teams will be isolated from each other to ensure the competition is fair. Teams will go into each emergency scenario with only sketchy details and just moments to prepare.

It’s a whole lot like real life, only no one gets hurt.

“There are no cellphones, just you and everybody else sitting in a room waiting to be called out,” says past competitor Cole Bellefeuille, now a safety specialist/security supervisor with the Mosaic Company Belle Plaine potash mine.

“It’s pretty competitive, so the adrenalin is going. It’s the calm before the storm.”

This year Mosaic Belle Plaine is sending a seven-member surface rescue team to the competition, which has both mock underground and surface rescue scenarios.

The seven individuals are part of the 25-person emergency response team that is prepared year-round to protect workers at the job site just west of Regina. It is an exceptionally capable crew that trains two days a month to maintain its status.

Two weeks before competition, however, they will put aside the daily grind to train nine hours a day so they can gear up for the action-packed event.

Jeff Price, environmental, health and safety manager at Mosaic Belle Plaine, says the competition is an opportunity to demonstrate skills related to potential on-the-job dangers in a pressure-packed, but safe, environment.

“It’s a very well-run competition,” Price says. “The people who set it up are very passionate about it. The judges are very involved and give lots of feedback.”

Teams can expect to be confronted with everything from having to pull a patient from a burning building (there’s a smoke machine at the event) to roping rescue workers out of confined spaces and administering first aid to patients suffering from simulated head injuries and bleeding.

Although each emergency is make-believe, spectators can be sure that every effort is made to make it look like the real deal.

“It’s the closest thing we can simulate to an emergency without having an emergency,” Bellefeuille says. “Last year, they had severed fingers in the trash can. Obviously, it’s fake, but there are props that go into it.”

Key to the event’s success is the fact planning begins a year in advance, says Tracey Irwin, Saskatchewan Mining Association communications manager.

And the dramatic, lifelike demonstrations speak to the passion behind the organizers, including volunteers, who make the annual attraction happen.

“St. John Ambulance works with us and they do a fantastic job with casualties,” Irwin says. “They definitely don’t take it lightheartedly at all.”

Unlike real life, however, many of the events are timed, ramping up the rush of rivalry to take home the win for top rescue teams.

“It’s like a football or hockey

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N AT I O N A L HONOUR

Top spot in safety The Mosaic Company Belle Plaine has won a 2016 John T. Ryan Safety Award from Mine Safety Appliances Canada Ltd. Receiving the national award for safety achievements is an honour, but the reason behind it is the bigger coup, says Jeff Price, Mosaic Belle Plaine’s environmental, health and safety manager. “It’s what we say we are striving for but actually doing it was impressive,” he says.

The award acknowledges the mining company boasted a zero reportable injury rate which means the site had no serious injuries leading to lost time or modified work in 2016.

The trophies are named after John T. Ryan who was the founder of Mine Safety Appliances of Canada Limited (now MSA Canada Inc.) “It is kind of nice to be recognized on the national level,” Price says.

It was the first time the site achieved a zero injury rate in its 52-year history.

While he credits some of the win on “luck,” Price points out the mining industry in Saskatchewan has seen an ongoing, substantial decrease in injuries.

“We focus here on frontline supervisors’ presence out in the work areas and getting people involved,” he says.“The front-line workers are looking out for themselves and watching other workers.”

Nadia Moharib

team — you do all this training and you want to be the best,” Bellefeuille says. “There are bragging rights on the line.”

While competition is fun, many say being on the emergency response team at their workplace is an honour.

“It sounds cheesy, but I joined because of the sense of wanting to help in an emergency situation and working with like-minded people,” says Bellefeuille who has been on his job-site team for four years.

As for the Emergency Response/ Mine Rescue Skills Competition, Bellefeuille says the only thing better than being there as a spectator is being a participant.

“It’s like getting to do really cool things with really great guys,” he

Cole Bellefeuille, left, with fellow Emergency Response Team member Devin Leys volunteering at an Easter Seals event in Saskatoon.

It’s the closest thing we can simulate to an emergency without having an emergency.

Last year, they had severed fingers in the trash can ... says. “And when you are done, you are very proud of all the training and showcasing all the work we put in throughout the year.”

Last year, the Belle Plaine site was runner-up in the surface category.

The winners were PotashCorp Patience Lake in the surface category and PotashCorp Lanigan in the underground category.

While safety in the mining industry is serious stuff, the free event is about fun for the whole family, with lots of activities from face-painting to a computerized, simulated firefighting event for youngsters.

The competition is the final event for Saskatchewan Mining Week, which runs May 28 to June 3, 2017.

ABOUT THE COMPETITION The 49th Annual Emergency Response/Mine Rescue Skills Competition takes place Saturday, June 3, at Prairieland Park, 503 Ruth Street West, in Saskatoon.

Underground and surface rescue teams will demonstrate skills in five events: ■■ Firefighting;

REGINA LEADER-POST

■■ First

aid;

■■ Proficiency

skills; skills; and ■■ Simulated surface and underground mine problems.

The event runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. It’s free to the public and has a family fun zone with activities for children.

■■ Practical

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F R I D A Y, M A Y 2 6 , 2 0 1 7

SASKATCHEWAN MINING REPORT

REGINA LEADER-POST

Fortune Minerals Ltd. says a planned mine at its NICO deposit in the Northwest Territories would have access to some 33 million tonnes of reserves. P H O T O S : F O RT U N E M I N E R A L S LT D.

Planned refinery big part of ‘new economy’ Materials essential for e-car batteries would be processed near Saskatoon G ORD BROCK

A planned $250-million refinery near Saskatoon could make Saskatchewan a major producer of materials essential to manufacturing batteries for the clean electric cars of the future.

Fortune Minerals Ltd. of London, Ont., wants to mine its NICO deposit in the Northwest Territories. After milling the ore on site, it then would ship 180 tonnes per day of concentrate by rail to a site near Saskatoon in the Rural Municipality of Corman Park.

There, it will be processed into marketable products, including cobalt compounds, gold, bismuth and copper.

“It’s very important that our products are universally recognized as products for the new economy and a significant enabler for renewable energy,” says Robin Goad, president of Fortune Minerals.

Bismuth is considered a safe alternative to lead in a range of products. Cobalt in the form of lithium cobalt oxide is a key ingredient of rechargeable batteries, including those used in everything from hand-held consumer devices to electric cars.

According to a recent global outlook produced by the International Energy Agency, there were fewer than 1.3 million electric cars on the roads of the 40 largest consuming countries at the end of 2015.

However, sales are expected to ramp up rapidly.

The Paris climate declaration sets targets that would require 100 million new electric cars by 2030, while the IEA suggests as many as 140 million may actually be produced.

Such a rapid adoption of electric vehicles would boost demand for large battery-producing plants — and a supply of cobalt at Fortune’s proposed refinery could encourage construction of a battery plant nearby, according to Goad.

“So here’s an opportunity for some downstream manufacturing and value-added processing in the province,” he says.

The refinery itself would need 85 full-time employees and create contracting opportunities for its construction and upkeep.

Fortune is still awaiting some government approvals.

It has retained a financial firm to raise capital and is updating a feasibility study, which Goad says would be released soon.

The project’s financial prospects have improved, thanks to a steep rise in the world market price for cobalt, currently up to US$25 a pound from $10 a year ago.

Meanwhile, the price of gold is holding steady while bismuth has slid somewhat — an acknowledged issue.

An artist’s rendering shows a proposed facility that would be located beside CN Rail’s main line near Saskatoon.

Fortune has retained PricewaterhouseCoopers “to secure the project financing, so we want to make sure we get the right amount of money, which is roughly $600 million,” Goad says.

Several cost advantages support locating the refinery near Saskatoon.

The first is local access to a skilled labour pool that would otherwise have to be flown into the Northwest Territories and housed at a camp — and therefore would be hard to retain.

Electricity for the refinery is available in Saskatchewan at a fraction of the cost in the Northwest Territories. Industrial chemicals are more available, as are services including natural gas. And having a site near a major railway and the Yellowhead Highway is helpful.

As well, Goad cited a tax incentive for anyone who processes ores in Saskatchewan from an extraterritorial location and meets certain conditions. It lasts for five years and applies to a facility costing a minimum $150 million, with more than 75 employees, he says.

An official at Saskatchewan’s Ministry of the Economy, when asked about tax incentives for Fortune, referred to published policies. Another outstanding item for Fortune is the final go-ahead from local government for the proposed refinery site.

“We need a zoning change from the municipality of Corman Park.

And then a construction permit, for example, from the Saskatchewan government,” Goad says.

Provincial environmental approvals for the plant and related

disposal methods are in hand, he says. Fortune also has the permits required in the N.W.T. Fortune obtained land there in 1994, began drilling in 1996 and now has proven and probable reserves of 33 million tonnes, sufficient for a 21-year mine life, with prospects for operating longer.

NICO’s reserves contain 82.3 million pounds of cobalt, 1.11 million ounces of gold, 102 million pounds of bismuth, and 27.2 million pounds of copper to support a mill rate of 4,650 tonnes of ore per day.

During the life of the NICO mine, the refinery is expected to annually produce an average of 1,615 tonnes of cobalt contained in a cobalt sulphate heptahydrate, 41,300 ounces of gold, 1,750 tonnes of bismuth in ingots, needles and oxide, and

copper as a minor by-product.

The refinery also would be able to process concentrates from other mines (some of which are already identified) and diversify into battery and metals recycling.

Nearly $120 million has been invested by Fortune, of which about $9 million was spent directly in Saskatchewan.

“And if you include the metallurgical test work, which is primarily with a Saskatchewan facility, there’s probably another $10 million,” Goad says.

To extract the end products, Fortune’s refinery would use “hydrometallurgical process methods” that are distinct from heat-intense pyrometallurgical processing, which uses large furnaces to recover metal.

“We’re using proven technology and have done further validation of that process in pilot plant work, including the recoveries of the products we’re going to produce. So we’ve actually produced product for testing by downstream battery manufacturers,” he says.

One result of this process is “a salty effluent that is actually cleaner than the deep saline aquifer which we’re going to inject it into.”

At the project’s end, the land will be reclaimed for agricultural use.

A “filter cake material” will be left behind at the site in a storage facility. Goad says it has been determined to be safe by local experts and validated by Saskatchewan’s environment ministry as part of the completed environmental assessment process.

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SASKATCHEWAN MINING REPORT

97%

Think the industry is important to Saskatchewan

85%

Have a favourable view of the mining industry

F R I D A Y, M A Y 2 6 , 2 0 1 7

75%

65%

Are confident that the regulatory system ensures safety

M15

REGINA LEADER-POST

78%

Think industry supports reducing greenhouse gases

Have a positive perception of mining as a career choice

Q&A WITH S M A P R E S I D E N T P A M S C H WA N N

INDUSTRY EARNS SUPPORT Survey finds strong approval for mining in Saskatchewan NA D I A M O H A R I B

People living in Saskatchewan strongly endorse the province’s mining industry, according to a recent public opinion survey done for the Saskatchewan Mining Association.

Ninety-seven per cent of residents believe the mining industry is important to Saskatchewan, including 74 per cent who think it is very important.

SMA president Pam Schwann says the industry is happy to have such strong support in the province, where about 30,000 people are directly or indirectly employed in mining.

“We are strongly and robustly regulated. We are safe. We are good environmental stewards and offer good careers,” she says.

“And we’ve got good public support.”

Fast Consulting conducted the provincewide public opinion survey on behalf of the SMA. One thousand residents over age 18 were randomly selected and surveyed both by phone and online in the fall of 2016.

The survey has a 95 per cent level of certainty that results are within plus or minus 3.1 per cent of what they would be if the province’s entire adult population were to be polled.

We asked Schwann to interpret the survey highlights.

This is an edited transcript of her comments.

Q Is this the first time you’ve done this survey?

A This is the third time. The first was in 2008 and then in 2012.

Q The report indicates that the mining industry has “social licence” to operate in Saskatchewan. What is the meaning of this for the mining industry and the provincial economy?

A It means we have earned public trust and support to operate. We have demonstrated we are acting in a responsible and sustainable manner, whether it is in respect to the environment or worker health and safety, and demonstrated the direct economic benefits of mining. These benefits are also being shared among residents of the province.

I think the results of the survey show the public agrees. We’ve got over 24 mining operations across the province. More than 30,000 people are directly or indirectly employed. We also have a strong mining supply chain, from transportation to catering to fabrication of machinery. We also see benefit through taxes and royalties. Having a vibrant mining economy really translates into a vibrant Saskatchewan economy.

Q How does this make Saskatchewan different from other Canadian jurisdictions with large mining industries, such as Ontario, Quebec and B.C.?

A The level of support in Saskatchewan is likely a little higher than in other jurisdictions. But mining has a high level of support across Canada.

That’s because there is mining in all jurisdictions except Prince Edward Island, so people are familiar with operations and see how the community benefits.

Canadian mining companies and

MORE FINDINGS

48

% Are knowledgeable about mining industry

89% Support the mining industry

83% Think mining

companies are locally invested Highlights from a survey of 1,000 Saskatchewan residents conducted in the fall of 2016 by Fast Consulting

suppliers are global and have very good standards. When they operate abroad they bring those standards with them.

Q Based on the survey, do Saskatchewan residents have an accurate picture of the industry? If not, where are the weak spots?

A I think they do. But there still may be misconceptions about the use of technology and safety.

If you are working deep underground and you can’t easily get to surface, you want to make sure you are engineering safe work environments. The mining industry really puts a lot of effort into reducing risk through safe work practices and by engineering safety into their operations.

The mining industry is statistically one of safest industries to work in — safer than health, safer than education.

On the technology side, the public doesn’t often see the highly innovative, early adopters of computer technology and robotics. We have automated mining machines, remote control mining and we’ve got electric vehicles such as man carriers in

S AS KATCH E WAN M I N I NG AS S OCI ATI ON

potash mines and we use aerial drones to map out the footprint of mine operations.

IMII—Innova ons that Ma er to Mining Interna onal Minerals Innova on Ins tute is responding to its industry members’ innova on needs by advancing a por olio of promising concepts which may be prototyped and piloted.

Q The public expresses its strongest confidence on the jobs and economy, but is less sure about the industry’s openness and its environmental stewardship. What does the industry need to do to improve on these fronts?

A I think we have to get better at explaining what we are doing and why. We all have a vested interest in making sure we are good at environmental stewardship. The industry is also highly regulated from where you start mining all the way to what we call postdecommissioning.

I think we could probably do things like meeting with communities throughout the life of a mine, rather than just at the front and back ends. Also, we need to be better at explaining technical information in a way that’s understandable. I think we are behind on some social media communication tools.

If you look at the amount of environmental activity and monitoring done by mine personnel, and the number of inspections, and how the mining companies are in compliance with regulations — there really aren’t environmental issues.

But the public needs to be assured that companies are conforming to regulations.

From co‐hos ng North America’s first TMAIMday Minerals with the University of Saskatchewan’s Innova on Enterprise, collabora ng with SIMSA on the first‐ever Mining Innova on Boot Camp at the Saskatchewan Mining Supply Chain Forum, to launching the Saskatchewan industry’s first set of Diversity & Inclusion Challenges, IMII is working to advance innova ons that ma er to mining.

INNOVATION

To join IMII in its efforts – either as a member or poten al project partner, visit us at www.imii.ca or call 306‐668‐2070.

201 – 112 Research Drive Saskatoon, SK ‐ S7N 3R3 REGXS374200_1_1

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SASKATCHEWAN MINING REPORT

REGINA LEADER-POST

URANIUM 101 DIGGING UP THE FACTS

THE TWO TITANS OF URANIUM PRODUCTION IN SASKATCHEWAN McArthur River/Key Lake mine is the largest uranium mine in the world while Cigar Lake has the richest deposits in the world.

A heavy metal, more than

18X

WHAT IS URANIUM?

McArthur River/Key Lake uses remote-control raise-boring to mine the high-grade uranium deposit to protect workers from radiation. The ore is then transported to the Key Lake mill.

Cameco is the operator and majority owner.

French nuclear energy firm Areva owns about a 30 per cent stake.

denser than water, scientists believe it originated from supernova stars more than six billion years ago.

U308

WHAT IS MINED?

Cigar Lake deposits involve unstable geological formations requiring the ground to be frozen and the ore is extracted using high-pressure water jets. Cameco is the operator with a 50 per cent stake in the mine, while ore is processed at the McClean Lake mill owned by Areva.

is the most common uranium product mined.

WHAT ARE THE INGREDIENTS USED IN MOST NUCLEAR ENERGY PRODUCTION?

URANIUM MINE LOCATIONS

Two isotopes — basically the same atoms only with different weights — are found naturally in ore: U-238 and U-235. The former is much more abundant, but it must be altered to create two other isotopes called plutonium 239 or U-233.

Athabasca Basin

CONTENT: JOEL SCHLESINGER

INFOGRAPHIC DESIGN: CHAR KOLESNIK

Athabasca Basin

McClean Lake Cigar Lake McArthur River

It is made from a process called fission by splitting the nucleus of the atom. The action releases a tremendous amount of heat that is used to make steam, which spins turbines that produce electricity in greater abundance than conventional sources and with no carbon emissions.

HOW IS NUCLEAR ENERGY PRODUCED?

Cigar Lake. G ORD WALDNER

Saskatoon Key Lake

Regina

Map of Saskatchewan

Sources: Government of Saskatchewan; Cameco; World-nuclear.org; nuclearinfo.net; nei.org

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