Overview -
The Voisey's Bay mine is located in Labrador, Canada. The mine, which is reported to contain one of the largest nickel deposits in the world, was discovered in 1993 and was acquired in 1996 by CVRD Inco. The main claim block mineral licenses total 1,978 claims (49,450 hectares) from the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Voisey's Bay project has three components: the open pit mine and concentrator at Voisey's Bay; a hydrometallurgical demonstration plant at Argentia, Newfoundland; and a commercial nickel processing plant at Long Habour Newfoundland. CVRD Inco is conducting a hydromet R&D program to determine the viability of hydromet for use at a commercial scale costing Cdn$155 million. If the research project is successful, a commercial processing facility will be built at Long Harbour. Until the processing plant is built in 2011, concentrate produced at Voisey's Bay will be sent to Ontario and Manitoba for processing.
The current known resource is approximately 141 million tonnes with 1.6% nickel. As of 2005, the Ovoid deposit, the site of the open pit mine, contains estimated proven and probable resources of 32 million tonnes. In addition to the proven and probable reserves in the Ovoid, there are an additional 40 million tonnes of indicated resource and 6 million tonnes of inferred resource available as part of the Voisey's Bay project.
Phase I development is an open pit mine and 6,000 tonnes-per-day concentrator which began commercial production in 2005. Production in 2006 is estimated to be approximately 110 million pounds of nickel in concentrate. Phase II is building the hydrometallurgical processing plant. Phase III would be an underground mine, tentatively planned to be built by 2018. Underground mine development and expansion of the concentrator, subject to successful completion of the underground exploration program, has an estimated cost of Cdn$825 million.
Voisey's Bay is a fly-in/fly-out operation. Employees work on a two-week rotation. The mine and concentrator employ 400 people; this number is expected to double when underground mining begins.
At present, the mine has an estimated life of 30 years. The anticipated capital investment for the project over a 30-year period is Cdn$2.9 billion.
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