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Mining contractor carves national niche (04/05)

By KELLY LOUISEIZE Cementation Canada Inc. brings a two-fold approach to tendering large mining projects that no other contracting company has. Its owners believe that makes the company an attractive, flexible option for resource development.

By KELLY LOUISEIZE

Cementation Canada Inc. brings a two-fold approach to tendering large mining projects that no other contracting company has.

Its owners believe that makes the company an attractive, flexible option for resource development.

Cementation Canada, formerly known as Cementation Skanska, will pull in approximately $120 million this fiscal year after starting with zero revenues.

The only mining contractor in Canada with an internal engineering group, Cementation provides engineering and design components for mine development. Significant projects currently underway include Falconbridge Ltd.’s $150 million Nickel Rim project, where a main shaft and a ventilation shaft will be sunk 1,760 metres and 1,640 metres respectively. They are also working on a Timmins-Kidd D project that consists of the sinking of a winz from the mine’s 1,433-metre depth, and Goldcorp Inc.’s new 2,195-metre shaft in Red Lake.

Cementation is also contract mining at Echo Bay Mines’ Lupin property in Nunavut and is pursuing other project ventures in the Northwest Territories.

They have become the primary contracting company in Manitoba and they are picking up projects in South America, as well.

The ability to work in unison with clients to hammer out flexible contract terms has attracted some of the larger mining players from around the world.

“I think we have brought some innovative ideas to the market with some different projects that have benefited clients,” says president Roy Slack.

The Kidd project is a time- and money-saving example where two phases were completed concurrently. The upper part of the shaft was set up the same time the first leg of the shaft was being installed. Slack, never shy to get on a soap box over the innovative thinking of his employees, calls this teamwork.

Cementation opened in 1998, when Slack hired a financial controller, two area managers and an engineering leader.

Today approximately 375 mining experts work for him in Northern Ontario alone.

Slack obtained his mining experience from Queen’s Univeristy in Kingston, as a mining engineer for J.S. Redpath in North Bay, and a contracting company that went public in 1995 and became a mining business.

He was hired by Norwegian conglomerate Kvaerner as a consultant to find a way to get back into the North American market. In 2001, Kvaerner was purchased by Skanska, based inSweden. The pursuit of the North American market continued. One of the options was to acquire an existing business with an ownership ready to retire. Southern Ontario’s Aurora Quarrying, with its 30 employees, was a good fit.

Recently, the parent company and Slack have been in discussions identifying services they can offer clients. One of Marray & Roberts’ subsidiary companies is RUC Raisedrillers, an internationally recognized raise boring company carrying the largest fleet of raise boring machinery on the planet. Slack believes that will become another service Cementation can offer to their North and South American clients.

For the last several years, Slack says they have especially focused on tendering projects they know they can “bring value to.”

www.cementation.ca