A southern Ontario analytical lab is expanding its footprint in northwestern Ontario with expansions in Thunder Bay and Timmins, and a new shop in Red Lake.
Activation Laboratories Ltd. (Act Labs) is taking over the former Brick furniture store directly across the Thunder Bay Expressway from its Moffat Hangar at the Thunder Bay International Airport.
Ryan Mackie, the company’s regional manager said the 38,000-square-foot building on Walsh Street will house their administrative office, wet chemistry and new mineral detection technologies such as XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence) and ICP-MS to test for multiple mineral elements.
“This will be the first commercial-used XRF in Northern Ontario. The universities and mines will have them specifically for them but they’re not commercial labs,” said Mackie.
The other technology is being installed to support their chromite work out of the Ring of Fire in the James Bay Lowlands.
The expansion to Walsh Street, combined with their two warehouses on the airport property, will bring their total combined square-footage in Thunder Bay to 85,000.
The Ancaster-headquartered company has come a long way in a short period of time since setting up the Thunder Bay lab in a former Confederation College aviation school hangar in the spring of 2008.
The airport location is convenient for clients flying in samples.
By the time the Thunder Bay expansion is finished, their workforce will range between 120 and 130 staff. They’re looking for chemists or people with previous analytical experience, though they are willing to train.
Mackie said a “good percentage” of their volume of samples comes from the Ring of Fire. He could not provide number on their volume because of competition with other assay labs, but compared to last year, volume is “pretty high and steady.”
The company set up a booth at the Northwestern Ontario Mines and Minerals Symposium and took in the optimism for the upcoming field season.
The company has set up a sample preparation lab in Geraldton to be close to gold exploration in the Beardmore-Greenstone camp. Activity by companies like Kodiak Exploration prompted an expansion to a full gold camp and will employ 30 employees.
Mackie was in Timmins in early May, setting up a full gold lab on Iroquois Road in a 10,000-square-foot building that will staff up to between 35 and 45.
“We’ll be able to do the complete analysis for gold locally,” both with fire assay and gravimetric finish, says Mackie. Any multi-element work will be sent out to other labs. The sample prep department was expected to be running by late May.
Mackie is heading to Red Lake to set up another lab which will be a replica of the Timmins location.
“It’s going to be a high-volume full gold lab with sample preparation, fire assay, AA (Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy) and gravimetric finish for gold. Any multi-element work will be sent to Thunder Bay.”
Mackie said the turn-around time varies on analysis but staff can deliver between five and seven days for most analysis.
By the end of next year, the company expects to employ between 200 and 300 workers at their gold labs with new equipment as they add ICP technology if the base metal and multi-element work is there to support it.
“With the technology we are adding in Thunder Bay, we’re trying to diversify the Thunder Bay lab’s portfolio of what we’re able to do in the North.”
The company has also set up gold labs in western Quebec to support mining and exploration activity in Val d’Or and Ste-Germain-Boule in the Abitibi region.
