This Labour Day, Consolidated Thompson Iron Mines (CLM) can easily say it’s been a year of realizing important goals and reaching big milestones.
This summer (July) saw the first shipment (165,000 tonnes) of iron ore from the Bloom Lake mine leave port in Sept-Îles en route to China.
The Bloom Lake mine in North-Eastern Quebec is fully operational and CEO Richard Quesnel said he is pleased after a very busy last few years.
‘Things are going really well,” he said of the new open-pit mining operation located just two miles south of the Quebec-Labrador border. “We have been ramping up our shipping since July—our goal is to get it up to 8 million tonnes.”
So far, so good
On the Bloom Lake project there are currently 230 employed by Consolidated Thompson plus another 25 contractual workers.
Since the project went into operation early this summer, there is a lot of tweaking going on, but according to Quesnel, so far it’s been pretty smooth.
“No, there has been no major glitches,” he said of the new open pit operation. “We are sorting the bugs out and making sure things are working right, but I am pleased with how things are happening. Every CEO wants things to happen in the shortest time frame and, so, I am pleased as we ramp things up.”
Local, local
While most of the Quebec-based project has a workforce that is, for the most part, local, Quesnel said, there are others who’ve been hired outside Quebec as well.
The language barrier is to be considered, he said, and in keeping with safety, a bilingual worker would be the most desired.
When it comes to the operation of the train that carries the ore cars from Bloom Lake into Wabush and on to the Point Noire port facilities, the workers are local to Labrador West, as noted by Greg Mercer (corporate affair for CLM)
“With our railway, it’s been all local workers who’ve been trained,” said Mercer. “We have eight engineers to operate the train and two local managers. So, it’s 100 per cent local.”
Plenty of work
Even as the mine operation, there is plenty of work ongoing when it comes to finishing and tweaking the project, said Quesnel, and it involves everything from putting siding on buildings, welding of tracks and getting the train speed up to 30 mph (after ballasting and stress testing was completed).
In the last three years, CLM has succeeded in its mine site preparations and its infrastructure, put together a 31-kilometre rail line in an eight-month timeframe (working through the Labrador winter), purchased 740 new ore cars, acquired financing, secured markets in Asia and established a modern lay-down area near Point Noire port facilities.
Quesnel said, overall, it’s been a project that was on the fast track but that is the way he likes it.
“I like to see things moving very fast,” he said. “And with the local cooperation being so good, it certainly helps with the whole process.”
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