Carol Lake (IOC)

Overview

The Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC) is the largest producer of iron ore in Canada, and a leading global supplier of iron ore pellets and concentrates. IOC has its head office in Montreal, Quebec. 

IOC operates an open pit mine (Carol Lake), concentrator and pellet plant in Labrador City, Newfoundland and Labrador, and transports its products along a 418 kilometre railway to its port facilities in Sept-ÃŽles, Quebec on the St Lawrence Seaway. IOC has large quantities of ore reserves with low levels of contaminants.

IOC began extracting ore at its mine site in Schefferville, Quebec, in 1954. The current mine and process facilities, known as the Carol Project, began in 1962, and still has a significant resource base available.

The concentrator annual capacity is 17 million tonnes of iron ore concentrate, of which 13 million tonnes is pelletised and the balance is sold directly as concentrate.

In May 2010, IOC resumed its expansion plans in order to increase its annual concentrate capacity by 4 million tonnes, to 22 million tonnes in 2012.

After processing at the Labrador City facilities, the pellets and concentrate are transported south via the Quebec North Shore and Labrador (QNS&L) railway to the company's shipping terminal and deepwater port in Sept-ÃŽles, Quebec.

The port at Sept-ÃŽles handles ore carriers up to 255,000 tonnes, providing competitive access to all seaborne pellet markets and to the North American Great Lakes region. IOC exports its concentrate and pellet products to major North American, European and Asian steel makers.

Location

The Carol Lake open pit mine is located 10 km north of Labrador City in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

Labrador City is located close to the Quebec border. In 2011, it boasted a population of 7,367. It is an iron mining town founded by the Iron Ore Company of Canada.

Iron ore was first mentioned in the region in 1860s by a Jesuit priest but it's importance and potential come from the pioneering GSC geologist Arthur P. Low in the early 1890s - "before leaving this part of the river, attention must be drawn to the immense amount of rich iron ore seen about the shores of the lakes, which can only be estimated by millions of tons".

Newfoundland and Labrador is the eastermost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador (located Northwest of the island) with a combined area of 405,212 square kilometres (156,500 sq mi).

Geology & Mineralization

The Labrador Trough or the New Quebec Orogen is a 1,600 km (994 mi) long and 160 km (99 mi) wide geologic belt in Canada, extending south-southeast from Ungava Bay through Quebec and Labrador.

The trough is a linear belt of sedimentary and volcanic rocks which developed in an Early Proterozoic rift basin. To the west is the Archean Superior Craton. To the east are the rocks of the Archean Rae Craton. The sedimentary rocks and volcanics of the Labrador Trough were intensely deformed and subjected to high grade metamorphism along with the Churchill terrain during the Trans-Hudson orogeny^.  It is a northeast extension of the Circum-Superior Belt and is terminated to the south by the Grenville Front Tectonic Zone.

The Labrador Trough comprises a  large iron ore belt developed on banded iron formations that were originally stratiform deposits of sedimentary origin deposited in shallow waters. They were subsequently affected by successive metamorphic events. Cretaceous weathering and alteration of the iron bearing rocks removed much of silica and carbonate but left in place high grade hematite ores.

The Carol Lake contains 13 individual magnetite-hematite orebodies.

Mining & Operation

Carol Lake iron ore mining operations are nothing but conventional truck and shovel open pit mines.

Mining sequence consists of: Drilling, Blasting, Excavation, ATO Train Loading.

Mining equipment is listed below:

- 8 x Electric rotary drills: 3 BE49RH, 1 P&H120A, 4 P&H320A
- 4 x P&H2800 Electric rope shovels (26m3 bucket)
- 2 x Letourneau 1850 front end loaders
- 23x Diesel Electric Komatsu 830E Haulage trucks
- 5x Diesel Electric Komatsu 930E Haulage trucks

Processing

IOC operates the Carol Lake concentrator and pellet plant also located in Labrador City. It transports its products along a 418 kilometre railway to its port facilities in Sept-ÃŽles, Quebec on the St Lawrence Seaway. The trains can haul up to 24,000 tonnes of ore in 265 cars stretching some four kilometers in length.

The port at Sept-ÃŽles handles ore carriers up to 255,000 tonnes, providing competitive access to all seaborne pellet markets and to the North American Great Lakes region. IOC exports its concentrate and pellet products to major North American, European and Asian steel makers.

Process flowsheet consists of Crushing, Wet mills, primary Cyclones, Min Spiral plant, Sala Drum, Magnetic Separators, Plant Screen, Secondary Spiral Plant, 60' Thickener, Magnetite Concentrate Storage Tank.

Processing equipment consists of:

Primary grinding:
- 3 x (32ft X 13.7ft) wet autogenous grinding mills (Metso)
- 19 x (5ft X 12ft) vibrating screens (Tyler)

Primary spiral plant:
- 19 x lines and 6 circuits containing 4440 spirals
- (Reichert and Carpco) and 6 hindered settlers (Floatex)
- 30 x horizontal vacuum filters (Dorr Oliver)

Magnetite plant:
- 4 x ball mills (3 Allis-Chalmer and 1 Dominion)
- 46 x (4ft X 10ft) Low Intensity Magnetic Separators (Metso)
- 18 x (3ft X 8ft) vibrating screens (Derrick)

Hematite plant:
- 2 x circuits containing 936 spirals (Reichert)
- 36 x (3ft X 8ft) vibrating screens (Derrick)

Pellet plant

- 14 x ball mills - 8 Allis-Chalmers, 5 Dominion and 1 Hardinge
- 3 x thickeners - 2x150 ft and 1x60 ft
- 4 x mixing tanks
- Flotation Plant: 7 Rougher and 2 Scavenger cells (Outotec) 
- Filtering & Balling: 26 vertical disk filters, 26 Balling Drums
- 6 x Dravo travelling grate Indurating Furnaces
- Screen house

 As of 2011, the company envisioned an expansion of their operations that would result in the production of 26 Mtpa concentrate at a capex of $500 million.

Environment & Community

Rio Tinto's Iron Ore group seeks to balance economic, social and environmental considerations across all parts of its business. This is achieved by making sustainable development considerations an integral part of our business plans and decision-making processes.

Rio Tinto's Sustainable Development and Climate Change Panel supports senior leadership to embed sustainable development into the way we work. The group oversees the organisation's identification and management of economic, environmental and social risks, and opportunities.

In addition to Rio Tinto's statement of business practice, The way we work, Rio Tinto define its commitment to sustainable development with nine principles. Together, these principles guide the way we plan for the future.

Closure

The closure of a mine or other operating sites requires planning beyond simply rehabilitating the site. Rio Tinto consider the management of social issues resulting from closure, especially in remote areas where communities are dependent on the socio-economic benefits of the mine.

Rio Tinto plans for closure from the earliest stages of project development to decommissioning activities and are guided by the Rio Tinto Closure Standard.

The intent of the standard is to ensure that Rio Tinto managed activities are left in a condition which minimises adverse impacts on the human and natural environment.

Rio Tinto experiences with closure planning have helped the business understand that the environmental and social legacy is possibly the most tangible indicator of an operations contribution to sustainable development in the areas where we operate. Consequently, we have adopted a multi-disciplinary approach to closure planning, requiring a wide range of technical and business disciplines.

These activities allow Rio Tinto to influence the design, development, operation and closure of all managed operations to ensure post-closure outcomes that meet needs and expectations outside of the business.

Product stewardship

Product stewardship means understanding the life cycle of the metals and minerals we produce, including the safe production, use and disposal of metal and mineral products as the need for them continues in society.

Increasingly, producers have both individual and joint responsibility with other stakeholders to ensure that products are managed safely across their life cycles. Our product stewardship work allows us to improve our understanding of the health, safety and environmental implications of the use of our products. Rio Tinto's product stewardship strategy emphasises the importance of understanding threats and opportunities in the market, and the importance of engagement with key stakeholders including customers, suppliers, regulators and communities.

Rio Tinto is in the process of implementing a formal material-stewardship programme, as well as completing life cycle assessments on key products. Material stewardship is a collective term for resource, process and product stewardship. It means better understanding and taking responsibility for our iron ore products, from their discovery and mining, production, use and management at end of life.