98 Page 96 By Frank Giorno W illiam Quesnel and R y an Quesnel a father and son team with deep roots in T immins are working hard with the support of their board of directors and private investors to open a ground breaking magnesiumtalc mining operation near South Porcupine On tario If Bill Quesnel has his way T immins could become the world leader for both talc and magnesium production He terms the two closely associated minerals ener gy savers with environ Magnesium is primarily used in both magnesium or aluminum alloys and also as a means of desulphurization in the production of iron and steel It is considered the lightest structural met al in the world Automakers especial ly crave lighter but sturdy material in the vehicles they manufacture This is quickly becoming the primary appli cation of magnesium As many other being lighter weight magnesium al products every day including hand tools laptops and luggage to name a few The T immins area has long history of uninterrupted talc production from the Penhorwood Mine located W e st of T immins which is now operated by Imerys T alc T alc has a number of commercial and industrial appli cations in paints plastics industrial coatings ceramics and the process ing of paper General Magnesium will focus on plastics as an end use for the high brightness high quality talc it produces although a portion of its items as well The mining operation in Whitney township will feature a German de signed surface miner to cut rather than drill and blast the resource T ak ing advantage of this mining method means there will be no primary crush amount of secondary crushing re quired The 97 million tonne 43101 compliant resource is located on sur face and has combined talcmagnesite grade in excess of 81 This will ulti mately mean less material going into orientation of the deposit the waste to set on giving the city Contd on pg 97