Jody Shimkus, Vice President at HD Mining was in Tumbler Ridge to discuss the Murray River Project with Council.
The Murry River Project is in Care and Maintenance Mode, after receiving it’s Environmental Assessment Certificate in October, 2015.
In 2020, they applied for and received a five year extension on that, but they must have made a “substantial start” on the project by October 2025.
What does that mean? According to the Government of BC, the term is not defined in the act, and determination is made on a case-by-case basis, though previous decisions do help in guiding the decision making process.
The main consideration is this: “has there been a significant investment of time, effort, and resources to physically develop one or more main project elements?”
According to Shimkus, they are moving slower than they were planning, but they are working on having an all-Canadian crew when the mine starts up.
When the mine was first proposed, there were few people in Canada with underground experience, and the plan was to bring in workers from China to start the mine, then slowly transition to a Canadian workforce.
“It’s been very important for HD Mining to try and build a Canadian workforce,” says Shimkus. “Fortunately or unfortunately, with the closure of Myra Falls, that has opened up an additional workforce that we did not have before.”
The Myra Falls Mine on Vancouver Island, produced copper, lead and zinc. It shut down in December, 2023, meaning there are now 300 experienced underground workers looking for jobs.
“We have contracted Thyssen Mining, which is based out of Saskatchewan, but has workers all over Canada, including quite a few in BC. They will be our primary contractors for the underground mining component.”
Thyssen provides contract employees for mines across North America. Most of the workers were at Quinsom before they moved on to Myra. “Now that Myra Falls has shut down, we’re able to draw from them, and they would be the core group of guys coming in that know the work and can begin the training process and develop the workforce.
But while they do have underground experience, they don’t have expertise with longwall mining. This is a good news/bad news scenario for the company. Because while it means they won’t need to bring over workers from China—something that met with strong opposition—it also means they won’t have as many workers as they were hoping. “We’ve extended our construction time frame because we’re dealing with a smaller workforce,” says Shimkus. “We want to build greater capacity. So starting with that core and allowing us to build greater underground capacity extends the time frame for our construction period.”
That means that they won’t be starting as soon as they were hoping. “In preparation for that substantial start, HD Mining has completed all of the required management plans and submitted them to the Environmental Assessment Office,” she says. “The BC Environmental Assessment Office has to determine that they are to their satisfaction. We are waiting for that decision before we can commence construction. Our current target for the start of construction is May 15, but that is subject to receiving the approval of those management plans from the BC Environmental Assessment Office.”
Once these plans are approved, she says, construction will actively start at the site. “We are anticipating an approximately five-year construction time frame. I know that’s longer than we had originally planned, but for a variety of reasons—including our desire to utilize the Canadian workforce and train the required underground miners—we have extended the time frame for construction.”
She says key construction activities planned are: site rehabilitation, generator refurbishment, installation of a hoist at the decline portal, dewatering at the decline portal, advancement of the existing decline to the shaft bottom, the last three of them would involve underground activity.
“We would also begin site clearing and drainage works at the shaft site, which is located at the north site of our footprint, and site clearing and drainage works for the proposed coal preparation plant, as well as engineering for foundation work at the north site ventilation shaft, and engineering for foundation work at the coal preparation plant. We expect that there will be approximately 50 workers on site during the construction time frame.”
Because they are expected to have made a substantial start by October 2025, the company is asking council for a letter of support.
She says “substantial start” is a highly subjective term and not clearly defined by the BC Environmental Assessment Office. “There is a series of court cases that have helped, and a guidance document with the BC Environmental Assessment Office,” she says. “Essentially, what they are looking for is that you have advanced all components of your certified project description, which is included in your EAC certificate. So in our case, we have five key components that are identified in our certified project system. There’s the underground mine, there’s the shaft site, there’s the CPP, there’s the secondary shaft site, and then the second decline. We will be able to show progression on four of the five, but not the fifth, because the secondary shaft site doesn’t come into play until year 15 of operation. But we’re going back into the decline and advancing that. We’re installing key infrastructure in the form of the hoist. We’re going to be doing clearing and preparation of the foundation at the north site for the ventilation shaft and we’ll be doing site clearing at the coal preparation plant. We’re confident that we can demonstrate that we are substantially started by both activities and expenditures because expenditures alone are not a determination of substantial start.”
With 50 workers coming to town, the company might need to arrange for additional housing. They currently have 16 units by the school, and a five bedroom house on the upper bench, but they may need to rent additional accommodations for workers.
Shimkus says the company is still planning on setting up an underground mining program with Northern Lights College. “That is part of our training and development plan. We will be working closely with Thyssen to develop a training program and utilizing Northern Lights College as well as the Center for Training and Excellence of Mining, the provincial organization that helps develop the underground mine training program. The whole intent of extending the construction period is to help with the training component and allow us to grow some more local workers. The current demographic for mining is not on our side. Even with the Thyssen Group you’re talking about a demographic that is aging.”
She says she is cautiously optimistic that they will get the go-ahead to start on May 15. “We are at the behest of the Environmental Assessment Office and we’re already on round three on one of our management plans. It’s a lengthy regulatory process. We’ve indicated that we have a very short construction season in Northeast BC and the further we push that into May, the more problematic it could become. Yes, we do have some underground works that we’re going to be focused on, but we have a significant hoist installation that will need to occur under ideally optimized conditions.”
With the current time frame, the mine would go into operation in 2029.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.