Trent
The Perry Pit is running out of coal.
This is not unexpected. Indeed, it is the nature of mining. At some point in time, you’re going to run out of available/accessible coal in an area.
In the case of the Perry Pit, that day is expected to come in the next 18 months to two years.
As a result, Conuma is in the process of getting it’s permits for Hermann.
President John Schadan says that this is not something unique or special, but it’s the process that all mines have to go through to operate.
“We are required to amend or extend our existing permits,” says Schadan. “The Environmental Assessment Certificate is the first of those; we have been working diligently over the last several months on the application. On October 16 of this year we formally submitted our Environmental Assessment Certificate Amendment Application to the BC environmental assessment office.”
At the same time, says Schadan, then mine is also applying for its Operational Permits: Mines Act Permit, the effluent permit and any licenses to cut down trees in advance of mining.
“So one of the unique things about this amendment application is we’re looking at both the environmental assessment office review as well as the Ministry of Energy mines of petroleum resources review at the same time and a concurrent approach. Our application was submitted in that way, and our teams are set up to respond to any questions that come out of the government’s initial review. We’re already in the process of responding to the first batch of questions that have are their initial review of our applications. But we’re doing this concurrently so that we can still maintain our timeline of late Q1/spring of next year for our approvals.”
Of course, that’s dependent on the government review. “It really comes down to the quality of our submission and the clarity and conciseness and relevancy of the questions that come back out of the different review teams. On the government side, there’s the two departments as I mentioned: Environmental Assessment and the Mines Ministry. They have their sub-teams and subject matter experts within each of those, reviewing their respective pieces. Our job is to make sure that we are working collaboratively to make sure that the responses are relevant and pertinent to the application at hand to provide a thorough and technical review of our project.”
Schadan is confident that Conuma will be able to field these questions and respond to them. “We are manned up to respond to the questions that come out of the government in a timely and thorough manner. You really never get certainty, but at least we have some predictability in the time frame, and we’re looking at spring for completion.
The Hermann Pit will not be a new mine, but an extension of the current mining operation, though located about 10 km as the crow flies from the current pit. “The coal seams exist right from Willow to Wolverine and beyond,” says Schadan, “and we have licenses across this area. What you need is an Environmental Assessment Certificate and Mines Act Permits to actually physically mine in any region of them. Our licenses don’t get permitted at once, they get permitted in chunks. So the Hermann amendment is just to continue to extend our EAC and include that into the mine. It’s not a new project. It’s not a different project. It’s just a continuation on the Wolverine. Every mining operation has to do this. It is not unique to Hermann.”
So, how disruptive will the transition be? Schadan says the plan is to transition gradually once the approvals are granted next spring. “Our plan is to have a continuous release of coal at the same rates that we produce today as we transition and wind down the existing Perry Creek operation and start transitioning our equipment and our resources over to the Hermann Pit. It’s not like we’re going to hire two fleets and two sets of organizations. It’s going to be a measured and planned approach and transition, and as mining winds down at Perry Creek, mining will be ramping up at Hermann.”
Schadan says this transition might take a year to a year and a half. “We are looking at a 12 to 18 month period on the overlap from when we fully decommission or have moved out of the current Perry Creek operation. It’s based on sales and timing and ground conditions and stuff like that, but that’s probably a good window on what that transition is going to look like.”
While the new pit on Hermann will be 10 km away as the crow flies, it’s a little longer by road. What road that is, though, has yet to be determined. One of the big decisions they are still looking at is whether they are going to build a new haul road down to rail load out, or utilize the existing Mast Creek Road.
Other infrastructure needed, Schadan says, include sedimentation ponds to capture surface water that is generated through rain, snow melt or through mining. “We’ll also have biochemical reactors for Selenium treatment of the water if required. Going forward, so that’s probably the largest chunk of the infrastructure required.”
He says getting the Hermann pit up and running will take the company longer than it took to get the previous mines up and running because for those, everything was already in place. All Conuma had to do was take over the keys. For Hermann, they have to get their Environmental and operational certificates, but he doesn’t foresee any issues with that.
“Hermann is an example of the continued future and sustainability of our operation,” he says.
“Without permitted reserves, a coal mine doesn’t exist. With the current drop in the price and the market pressures that are going on right now—which we hope is temporary and there’s going to be a rebound—we have to retrench on our capital spending. So we have taken the past several weeks to do a thorough review of the spending, But we recognize that maintaining the regulatory process on Hermann, and moving forward with future amendment application is important, and that we don’t let off the gas pedal on moving those forward.”
