The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Allows NorZinc to begin construction of pioneer winter road North of 60 Mining News – October 21, 2022
NorZinc has the approvals needed to begin building a winter road to the Prairie Creek zinc-lead-silver mine project in Canada's Northwest Territories.
NorZinc Ltd. Oct. 19 announced that it has received the final approvals needed to begin construction of a winter road to Prairie Creek, the first phase of a planned 170-kilometer (105 miles) all-season road that will allow concentrates from the mine to be delivered to market.
The territorial government and Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board approved all NorZinc's management plans pertaining to the permit and license to construct the Pioneer Winter Road. While these are the final authorizations needed to carry out winter road work on territorial land, the manage plans need to be approved by Parks Canada for a section of the road that runs across the Nahanni National Park Reserve.
"We are very pleased to receive these approvals from the GNWT and MVLWB allowing us to start access road construction on territorial lands," said NorZinc President and CEO Rohan Hazelton.
The Prairie Creek Mine is surrounded by Canada's Nahanni National Park Reserve, which encompassed the property when the reserve was expanded in 2009. At the time of the park expansion, however, the federal government provided NorZinc (then Canadian Zinc Corp.) with assurance that it would be granted access to Prairie Creek and the ability to mine there, once permits were granted.
In September, NorZinc was issued all permits needed to develop a 2,400-metric-ton-per-day mining operation at Prairie Creek that would produce an average of 261 million pounds of zinc-equivalent annually over 20 years of mining.
Home to a past-producing mine, Prairie Creek has much of the infrastructure already in place for this operation.
The company also has benefits and environmental agreements with local First Nations for the development of both the mine and access road.
"The company remains committed to the responsible development and mining at Prairie Creek to deliver the significant economic and social benefits to the local communities who are our partners in this process," Hazelton added.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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