Page 52 Page 50 By Kevin V incent No decisions yet As speculation continues to mount ofcials at Glencore are still evaluating the possible life of mine extension for the Kidd Creek operation As Mining Life and Exploration News reported in our Winter 2018 2019 edition the owners of the world s deepest base metals mine are pondering whether to pursue production targets below the 10000 foot level which would extend the life of mine beyond 2022 the year the company maintains publicly will be its last year of production The exploration program targeting mineralization below 3 km com menced in 2018 and it is much too soon to conclude anything from preliminary results said Kidd Op erations General Manager Mark Furlotte W e can confrm the frst phase of this exploration program in 2019 will focus on a 17000m drilling program underground de velopment and conceptual engi neering studies Kidd is investing signifcant time and eforts into this exploration project to see if we can extend the mine life But as every one in the mining industry knows defning an extension of a mine re quires signifcant time and drilling meters so we dont expect an an swer anytime soon Neither Furlotte nor Glencore can confrm when the company expects to conclude its analysis Uncertainty is part of the nature of exploration and the focus at this time is completing the necessary underground development to opti mize drilling locations for the 2019 drilling program he added In 2018 the company announced that production at the 50year old copper and zinc mine would cease in 2022 forcing its highlyskilled workforce to either retire or look for work elsewhere In addition the company s annual contractor spend of nearly 100 million would also begin to dwindle The unique copperzinc orebody a replica of which has never been uncovered anywhere else in the world has generally and loosely been described as an hourglass Since its discovery in the 1950 s successive Kidd owneroperators have produced billions of dollars worth of base metals commodities And while production would be curtailed the company would then begin a massive mine closure program expected to take several years The engineering challenge for the new discovery boils down to wheth er it makes economic sense for the company to penetrate that new orebody Infrastructure including the company s VOD or V entilation on Demand system as well as its fberoptic communications system and automated loaders are already established all positive mitigating factors that the company s Swiss owners will evaluate As for the mine s 2022 end of pro duction timeline Furlotte says that marker hasnt moved just yet The mining industry is used to the fact that a life of mine is a moving target and the current mine plan gets us well into second half of 2022 Five years ago the life of mine for Kidd was expected to be around 2018 Since then a lot of successful proj ects have been implemented by Kidd personnel to extend mine life by the adoption of new technolo gies such as V entilation on Demand and autonomous LHD operations W e continue to focus on optimising the operations to ensure we safely operate in the most costefcient manner to increase the quantify of ore that can be economically ex tracted from the deposit Life of mine extension still a waiting game Kidd Creek