Still Growing After All These Years.

For over 50 years, Iron Ore Company of Canada (58% owned and operated by Rio Tinto) has been a mainstay of the Newfoundland and Labrador economy, offering secure and well-paying jobs to thousands of people. IOC is the largest private industrial employer in the province, providing 1,500 direct jobs in Labrador and 500 in Quebec. Factor in the indirect employment IOC accounts for, and another 3,200 jobs are added to the total.

Even the devastating global recession that took hold in late 2008, barely slowed the company down. Unlike many other miners, IOC laid off none of its employees. Instead, the company instituted a five-week shutdown at the mine site and the port facilities in Sept-Iles. All capital spending was halted, including the expansion that was to have started in 2009. Pencils were sharpened, cost were cut, and cash management became the priority.

Now IOC is ready to take advantage of increasing iron ore demand, both for its pellets and concentrates.

A BIT OF HISTORY

Construction began in 1950 on the original mine at Schefferville, Que. The project was one of the largest industrial undertakings in the world at that time. In July 1954, the first train containing IOC ore left the mine site, and by the following year, the company was Canada’s largest iron ore producer, a distinction it still enjoys.

Labrador City, NL, became the centre of operations in 1962 with the opening of the Carol Lake concentrator and the Smallwood mine. The pelletizing plant at the same site was commissioned the following year.

Today IOC is a modern, efficient open pit operation with reserves and resources for another half-century of operation. At the Labrador City mine, ore is blasted, then loaded by rope shovels into 227-t or 160-t haul trucks that dump the ore into automated trains. Run-of-mine ore is railed 13 km to the primary crusher, where it is reduced to 50 mm by a pair of gyratory crushers. It is then conveyed to the concentrator.

From 43 million tonnes of ore, the beneficiation plant produces 17 million to 18 million tonnes of 65% to 67% Fe concentrate yearly. First, the ore is reduced in an autogenous/ball mill grinding circuit until 98% of the slurry passes -1.44 mm. The material is then upgraded in the spirals circuit and/or the magnetic separation circuit.

Most of the concentrate, approximately 13 million tonnes, is pelletized in Labrador City. This process involves regrinding, flotation (if necessary) and mixing with flux. The material is filtered to remove water and then passed through drums, emerging as green pellets, which travel through an induration furnace for hardening before rail transport to the port at Sept-Iles, Que., 418 km away.

At the port, rotary dumpers unload the rail cars, and the pellets or concentrate are stored. They are later reclaimed and conveyed to the holds of ships for transport to IOC customers around the world.

ALWAYS ON THE GROW

Only 10 years after IOC shipped its first tonne of ore from Schefferville, it shipped its one-hundred-millionth tonne. In 2004, the one-billionth tonne of product was ready for shipping. To keep up the pace, Canada’s largest iron ore producer has almost always been on the grow, completing multiple expansions over its 55-year existence.

Growth has been a constant factor in IOC’s planning. The first Labrador City pelletizing plant was commissioned in 1963. Four years later it grew from four lines producing 6 million t/y to six lines producing 10 million t/y. In 1970 a major expansion to 20 million t/y was initiated. That project included a new beneficiation complex in Sept-Iles to produce 6 million t of pellets annually and expansion of the Carol concentrator, both completed in 1973. A new project to expand the Sept-Iles concentrator was begun in 1973.

However, mining is a cyclical industry and the 1980s ushered in a downturn. Between 1980 and 1982, IOC reduced production both in Labrador City and Sept-Iles, closed its Sept-Iles beneficiating complex, and discontinued mining at Schefferville.

What goes down does come up eventually. The company’s fortunes were on the rise again before the end of the decade. In 1988 it announced that the pelletizing plant in Labrador City was operating at full capacity for the first time since 1981.

The 1990s was a decade of professional growth for the company. It secured ISO 9002 registration for its production methods and processes, becoming the first mining company to do so. IOC also updated its management systems, created and applied an environmental policy, and introduced a new supplier certification program. The pellet plant was also automated during the decade, and a new wet autogenous grinding circuit was installed in the mill.

IOC announced a $1.1-billion investment program in 1998. It included environmental refinements, technological upgrades, a boost to mining capacity, equipment replacements, and expansion of the product line to include (among others) direct reduction pellets. A major overhaul of the Carol concentrator began in 2000.

A large part of IOC’s success is undoubtedly due to its ability to supply what its customers need. The company produces a very high-quality product with few impurities in forms that suit various steelmaking processes. In that way the company prospered during the period of high commodity prices through most of the 2000s and its poised to continue its long run of growth and expansion.

IOC received approval in early May this year to restart is postponed expansion program. The program involves investing $435 million to increase annual concentrate capacity by 4 million tonnes to 22 million tonnes by 2012. Plans call for an overland conveyor to remove bottlenecks in the ore delivery system, a fourth autogenous mill to increase primary grinding capacity, and associated mine and rail equipment. This is the first stage of a three-stage program, originally announced in March 2008, that will boost annual concentrate production to 26 million tonnes.

“Growing our business is important for our future. Through the economic downturn, we built strength in our financial discipline. Now that markets have rebounded, it is vital that we build from that discipline to build further strength in our business. This expansion program will enable us to do that,” IOC president and chief executive officer Zo Yujnovich said when she announced the resumption of the program.

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