QuadraFNX looks at expansion in Sudbury Basin

QuadraFNX is a very active company with incredible interest in the City of Greater Sudbury.

That`s the message Michael Winship, chief operating officer for QuadraFNX Mining Ltd., told more than 160 business people at a Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce luncheon on March 31st.

“We see ourselves having a good future here in Sudbury and having exciting possibilities with expansion,” said Winship, in an interview with Northern Life.

During his half-hour presentation, he spoke of all the QuadraFNX mines currently active across the globe, including those in the U.S., and Chile.

But the majority of the focus was situated in Sudbury, where he gave detailed information regarding the company's three mines.

“The Levack mine is really our flagship right now,” he said. “It's really high grade copper, but also has nickel and PGM's (platinum group metals), so were producing about 600 tons per day, and eventually liked to expand it to 1,000 tons per day.”

He said the company has invested quite a bit of capital on the mine, and opened up the shaft to depth. He also would like to see a new maintenance shop facility at the site.

Other mines include the Podolsky mine near Capreol, which is a high grade copper deposit, and the smaller McCreedy West Mine, a copper operation which could potentially restart nickel production in the near future.

Overall, the economic spinoffs to Sudbury means more than $45 million in payroll in 2010, and more than $120 million in good and services in the district.

Half of the workforce is located at the Levack mine, with a third at the Podolsky Mine and the rest at the McCreedy Mine.

But perhaps their biggest highlight had nothing to do with those three local mines, but another one altogether – the Victoria Mine in the west end of the Sudbury Basin.

“It's a recent expiration discovery that has quite a deep deposit that was initially discovered in 2008,” said Winship. “We've been doing some surface filling and now we're moving into the engineering phase and environmental permitting.”

A scoping study is ongoing with a decision dependent on a discussion with stakeholders and with Vale.

“Hopefully we can start sinking the shaft this year,” he added.