William Koblensky Varela
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Nunavut News
A fire broke out at B2Gold’s Goose gold mine south of Cambridge Bay, causing $10 million of damage to equipment. However, there were no injuries on site, according to incoming president and CEO of the mining company, Mike Cinnamond.
The mine is now expected to produce between 18,000 and 20,000 ounces of gold in the second quarter of this year, down from its previously planned 29,000 ounces.
Cinnamond made the comments during the first day of the Nunavut Mining Symposium at Iqaluit’s Aqsarniit Hotel.
“We did have a fire which damaged part of the crushing plant at the mine at the start of last weekend. So luckily, the good news is there were no injuries, and we got the fire extinguished fairly quickly,” he said.
The blaze began near rock crushing equipment that separates large boulders into gold and excess minerals.
There was no disruption to power supply at the mine, Cinnamond stated.
“We think there’s probably capital cost estimate somewhere around $10 million to get the fire damage repaired,” he said.
B2Gold was already planning to do repair work on the ore crusher, according to Cinnamond.
Repairs are expected to be completed by the third quarter of this year, and plans to crush 3,200 tonnes of rock per day by that time remain on schedule, he added.
Once B2Gold fixes its crusher and can handle more rocks per day, Cinnamond said its gold production will grow to become the company’s biggest single mining operation worldwide.
“That should see us at the 300,000 ounce plus production level (per year), which is very significant for our company, that’ll be approximately 30 per cent of our production as we go forward,” said Cinnamond.
