THUNDER BAY — The president and CEO of Orla Mining, the Musselwhite gold mine’s new owner, says expansion is likely in the mine’s future.
Right now the mine north of Pickle Lake has “a little over 600” employees and there will be no job losses as a result of Orla’s acquisition of the mine, Jason Simpson told Newswatch in an interview from Vancouver.
In fact, he predicted, “there’s going to be an expansion to the workforce” and exploration to see where mining could be extended on the Musselwhite property.
The Vancouver-based company has “already made plans for additional investment in drilling,” he said.
“So I think the prediction is that the workforce at Musselwhite and supporting Musselwhite will increase, not decrease.”
The company plans to invest in three types of exploration drilling, Simpson said.
“The first category is, we’ll drill from underground … to extend and add to the resource base of the mine,” he explained.
“Now, this is not new to Musselwhite. This is something they’ve been doing very effectively for a great number of years, replenishing the resources that they deplete through their operation.”
The second type of exploration, he said, is surface drilling along the property’s “known deposit … so that we can make larger plans to both extend the mine life as well as expand the asset.”
Finally, he said, Orla plans to explore other parts of the Musselwhite property to look for “opportunities outside of the existing deposit.”
He added that all such activities would be “in agreement with our First Nation counterparts in the local communities, and permissions from the provincial and federal governments.
“But presuming that we’re all working together to try and find more and add to the benefits in this area, we’ll come to the table with the capital and the expertise to deliver that.”
Musselwhite is one of the largest gold mines in Canada. Orla Mining recently reached an agreement to acquire the 28-year-old mine from Newmont Corporation.
