Staying on Top of Underground Mining: What the Miners Have to Say

Staff at most mines have been scaled so far back that they depend on their counterparts at other mines for information and experience. In this spirit, two managers from entirely different types of mines have shared their views with CMJ about the technology being used and planned in their mines.

Parviz Farsangi is manager, mines at Falconbridge Ltd.’s Sudbury operations in central Ontario. This makes him in charge of four cut-and-fill and bulk- mining, underground nickel-copper-cobalt-PGM mines–the Craig, Fraser, Lindsley and Lockerby mines–that together feed the 8,000-tonne/day Strathcona mill.

Boyd Timler is general mine superintendent of Kinross Gold Corp.’s Hoyle Pond mine in Timmins, northeast Ontario. Hoyle Pond is a 1,200-tonnes/day underground gold operation that employs a variety of methods to mine multiple narrow, subparallel quartz veins, 10 cm to more than 5 m wide, dipping from vertical to near horizontal. “We employ ‘finesse’ mining where possible for dilution and ground control, making us labour-intensive, requiring a high skill level,” says Timler. “Our basis for mining method selection is on cost/ounce as opposed to cost/tonne.”