Seventeen months after acquiring a dormant INCO nickel and copper mine in Sudbury, Magna Mining said it’s ready to begin test mining later this year.
The hometown mine developer announced April 23 it has all the required approvals and permits in place to begin advanced exploration, both on the surface and underground, at its Crean Hill Mine project located in the southwest corner of the Sudbury basin.
Magna has pocketed a key Permit to Take Water from the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks. It's the final permit needed to start pumping water out of old mine workings at Crean Hill in pressing forward with the company's plans for first production.
Those plans include extracting a huge surface bulk sample later this spring and starting construction of a ramp from surface down into some very promising underground zones to begin the early-stage test mining program.
In a news release, Magna expects to remove 400,000 tonnes of mineralized rock, which will be crushed, sampled and hauled off to Vale Base Metals for processing. Magna signed an off-take agreement with the Sudbury mining giant last month.
Crean Hill is in an active mining and exploration corridor, 35 kilometres from the city and just off the Trans-Canada Highway.
It ran as an INCO mine from 1900 to 2002. Magna acquired the asset from Vale in November 2022.
Magna sees huge high-grade underground and open-pit mining potential; the latter would allow the company to go into production fairly quickly and start generating revenue for future operations. A preliminary economic assessment posted last July projected an initial 15-year mine life, but exploration drilling still continues.
It's a milestone moment for Magna Mining. In a statement, CEO Jason Jessup commented on the speed of his team since the acquisition to get to early stage mining.
"We acquired the Crean Hill Project in November 2022 and have advanced it to this point in only 17 months," he said.
“This is a remarkable accomplishment and a testament to our team and the jurisdiction in which we are building our company. Magna plans to initiate the surface bulk sample on the 109 FW Zone by the end of Q2 2024, and commence portal construction and underground advanced exploration in the second half of 2024.”
One promising area underground that Magna wants to tap is the 109 FW Zone where drill hits have returned intersections of high-grade copper, nickel and precious metals.
The testing mine, and the surface bulk sample to remove risks in their mine modelling, helps Magna confirm the continuity of the high-grade mineralization.
