Construction crews make final push to finish Greenstone gold mine

Construction of the Greenstone open-pit gold mine, south of Geraldton, is now at the 73 per cent completion mark 

In its quarterly newsletter, Greenstone Gold Mines said June has been a “blur” of activity during this peak period of construction as mechanical, piping, electrical and instrumentation teams are busy hooking up systems in preparation for commissioning and the first gold pour to be held sometime during the first half of 2024.

The $1.23-billion mine project is a few kilometres south of the town of Geraldton in the Municipality of Greenstone in northwestern Ontario.

The mine project is a 60-40 joint venture between Equinox Gold and Orion Finance.

As they continue to blast out the pit, General Manager Eric Lamontage said the project is “on schedule” as mine pre-production activities “continue to meet the planned tonnage” with work at the processing plant still ongoing.

Greenstone Gold Mine’s trained workforce for the actual mine operation now numbers 200. The project has reached three million hours without a lost time injury. 

All major equipment is now on site and is being installed.

The company newsletter clearly illustrates in words and photos how the landscape is changing, particularly at the processing plant site with the erection of conveyors and start of a geodesic ore storage dome.

Key components of the grinding circuit, including a high pressure grinding roll unit, are being installed. Good progress is being made on two ball mills.

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A commissioning team has arrived to prepare to switch on an on-site power plant later this summer.

Over the next few weeks, an electrical team will be pulling and terminating kilometres of cable through the site. A piping team be connected pipes for fire water, a glycol heating system, compressed air and process piping, the latter used in gold separation.

A truck stop was turned over to the maintenance team to move in. 

The company has been holding a spate of events in Geraldton and Longlac, including site tours for local dignitaries and in updating folks on the pace of project construction, upcoming job opportunities and how area businesses can partake in the mine project’s supply chain.

Greenstone Gold and a community sustainability committee are taking a page from the Hollinger Mine site in Timmins by planning a visitor look-out of the open pit. 

The area around the current mine construction is a series of former and historic underground gold mines. 

The future look-out next to the pit will be created using a cupola – the top part of the MacLeod headframe – while providing onlookers with a “glimpse of the past” honouring the area’s mining history while looking to the future with the current operation.

This work won’t take place until after 2025 to allow time for the design.

To make way for the pit, Highway 11 had to be realigned. For the new section of highway, the final layer of gravel is down,  all the adjoining road tie-ins are done, guard rails, lighting and signs are installed, landscaping is done, paving has started, and the highway will be turned over the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) for the roadway switchover by August.

The demolition of a nearby MTO patrol yard is finished and earthworks have started to place a Hydro One operating centre for Geraldton.