Pretty and Productive

The Wolverine Mine is truly a sight to behold. From its postcard setting adjacent to Wolverine Lake and a panoramic view of the Pelly Mountains, the site of Yukon’s newest mine looks almost resort-like in nature, but as its owners know, it’s far from it.

In fact, work has been almost non stop at the site as construction crews have been working feverishly to bring the project from advanced exploration to complete commissioning in just two years.

That feat alone has caught the attention of the mining world, as Yukon Zinc (YZC), owned by Jinduicheng Molybdenum Group Co and Northwest Non Ferrous International Investment Group (JDC) of China, moves ahead and starts producing ore from its massive sulphide, zinc-silver-copper-lead-gold deposit.

Located about 280 km northeast of Whitehorse and connected by the Robert Campbell Highway leading southward through Watson Lake to the existing Stewart Bulk Terminal in Stewart, B.C., the Wolverine Mine is ideally located for shipping bulk zinc concentrates with bagged copper and lead by truck to market.

And that’s exactly what Yukon Zinc is doing as it is now using a fleet of custom-designed nine-axle haul trucks, each with a 52-tonne capacity, to send concentrate to market. The large-capacity trucks are reducing the overall number of trucks and trips required between the mine and the port and, as a result, the company is also reducing carbon emissions.

In keeping with this responsible business plan, Yukon Zinc has also focussed on the environment by developing a passive water treatment system for use during closure, along with a biochemical treatment system, and its new truck shop includes an oil/water separator designed to reclaim waste oil to be used to heat a closed glycol loop, providing radiant heat in the floor of the truck shop.

These steps, along with the company’s overall site management practice, recently earned the company the Yukon Government’s Robert E. Leckie Award of Excellence in environmental stewardship, innovation and corporate social responsibility in the mining industry.

Aside from recognition for matters of a socially responsible nature, the Wolverine Mine is also making headlines for its productivity as Yukon Zinc continues to dig deeper and produce more.

As already mentioned, Wolverine is a massive deposit containing two stratiform sulphide lenses, the Lynx and Wolverine zones, each ranging from 0.5 m to 30 m in true thickness. Ore bodies are shallow dipping at approximately 35 degrees.

The mining method is drift and fill and the current mine depth is approximately 170 m. When the mine is fully developed, it will reach a depth of approximately 270 m. Drift dimensions in the main access ramp are 4.5 m wide by 4.8 m high arched. Drift dimensions in stope access drifts and production stope drifts are 4.5 m wide by 4.6 m high arched.

The stope drifts are driven at +2% grade with the main access ramp driven at -15% grade.

With full commercial production gearing up for later this year, the mill design is a traditional process involving primary and secondary crushing and screening, rod-and-ball-mill grinding and classification, pre-flotation, three-stage sequential flotation, regrinding, thickening and filtration.

Yukon Zinc expects to produce high grade concentrate when it reaches commercial production in particular zinc and silver (found in concentrates), and the company can take advantage of favourable silver prices.

Full capacity at the mill will be 1700 tpd and it will be operating 365 days a year.

Keeping a mine operating around the clock requires a vast amount of equipment, and the Wolverine Mine is already well equipped (as shown in the box below) with the tools to handle the job.

Like all mines of this scale, people are required to make it operate, and Yukon Zinc has 157 staff hired for Wolverine, and with YZC and various contractors, the average site occupancy at the mine is more than 180 people.

As the mine grows, the company says it will be looking for more technical personnel to join the Wolverine team to operate what is proudly Yukon’s newest mine.