UNDERGROUND MINING NEW – New joint venture for underground mining in Canada’s north

NUNAVUT/ONTARIO - A major underground mine contractor recently joined forces with an Inuit birthright development c...
NUNAVUT/ONTARIO - A major underground mine contractor recently joined forces with an Inuit birthright development corporation to launch a new company. The KITIKMEOT CEMENTATION MINING & DEVELOPMENT (KCMD) was formed by unanimous shareholder agreement of the KITIKMEOT CORP. (Cambridge Bay, Nunavut) and CEMENTATION CANADA (North Bay, Ont.) The new company was born on April 26 at a signing ceremony in Toronto.

KCMD already has a major contract to work on. Cementation was recently hired to carry out $20-million of underground mine development at the existing Diavik diamond mine northeast of Yellowknife, NWT. Cementation will assign the Diavik contract to KCMD, establishing it immediately as a significant mine development company in the north.

The group is actively investigating options for establishing training facilities and systems in the north, to teach mining skills and give safety training to aboriginals and northerners. This training will be key not only for providing local labour for KCMD contracts, but eventually supporting the northern mining industry with a solid mining skills base.

Charlie Lyall, who is president & CEO of Kitikmeot Corp. as well as CEO of the new company, said at the company launch: "The people of Kitikmeot entrusted me some time ago to create a future where Inu people will benefit from the natural resources. That day is a lot closer now."

Kitikmeot is the westernmost of three regions that make up Nunavut Territory. Scott Clark of Cementation translated "Kitikmeot" as roughly meaning "the centre of the arctic", but Lyall explained that a better translation would be " 'centre of the universe,' a title sometimes mistakenly claimed by Toronto." For more information about KCMD, contact Roy Slack, president of Cementation, at roy.slack@Cementation.ca or Charlie Lyall at clyall@polarnet.ca.

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