By NICK STEWART
With a year to go before the official unveiling of Ontario’s first diamond mine, construction efforts at the De Beers Victor Project are reaching record levels.
Nearly 600 workers are currently on the ground on a daily basis, though this number will increase to a peak of 800 in the coming weeks as work begins on the processing plant.
“The focus of construction this year is to build the process facility, and all the other necessary items like the crusher to feed everything in,” says Tom Ormsby, the Timmins-based spokesman for De Beers Canada's Victor Project.
“We’re also spending a lot of time now putting together the primary crusher site, and the amount of rebar and concrete going into that is tremendous. At the same time, we’ve been going very hard on the steel assembly, and it seems like every day something new is going up at the plant.”
Over the following 10 months, more than 150 mechanical and electrical systems are expected to be installed in the processing facility, which is slated to be 20 metres high, 50 metres wide and 100 metres long.
While much of this work will be focused upon assembling the processing site, efforts will also be made to ensure the completion and commissioning of a long-term accommodations and office complex. These series of facilities will also include a gymnasium and an auditorium, as well as administrative areas such as meeting rooms and training rooms.
Single-room living quarters will be constructed for the 360 employees that are expected to take up residence at the site. While rooms are expected to be private, employees will be expected to share common bathroom and shower areas.
These living quarters will be directly connected to the process facility by an external passageway. This will allow workers to avoid being exposed to some of the harsh winter weather that characterizes the area, Ormsby says.
De Beers is also on the verge of a mass recruiting drive as the company looks to hire 375 people within the next 10 months to occupy the various facilities as construction is completed.
As Victor will be an open pit mine, the company will be looking to hire a range of mining-related disciplines, from heavy duty mechanics to instrumentation techs, as well as those with experience in processing plants or mills. The diversity of positions will allow the company to hire among the many experienced forestry workers who have been laid off in recent months and years, Ormsby says.
The company is focusing its prospects for employment on the James Bay coast and Northern Ontario in particular. This allows potential workers to be close to home, providing them and the company with a strong level of stability, Ormsby says.
While the Victor project is slated to produce nearly 2.6 million tonnes of ore per year, it represents one of 16 diamondiferous kimberlites in the immediate area.
In the hopes of extending the Victor project’s 12-year lifespan, De Beers is currently conducting a bulk sampling program throughout four of the nearby kimberlite pipes. The closest of these is less than five kilometres away, meaning they will rely on the established Victor infrastructure to extract future production.
In fact, the current Victor project site footprint uses just 6.9 per cent of the current 5,000-hectare lease. This is due in equal part to the high cost of building in the area’s problematic muskeg as well as a desire to minimize the amount of environmental remediation necessary after the project’s completion.
The province’s proposed 13 per cent diamond royalty will not impede the company’s plans for Victor, Ormsby says, though it remains a point of concern.
Having spent $830-million on site preparation and construction so far and another $167-million expected to bring the site online in the next year, De Beers is not about to simply walk away as a result of the new cost, Ormsby says.
“We’re dialoguing with the government to try and review what they’ve proposed. It’s not just a matter of changing the royalty as a number, but regulations need to be addressed and accounting models need to be discussed. What are deductions and what aren’t? Is there still going to be a remote mining allowance? It’s a much larger discussion than going from five to 13.”
