Vancouver-based miner Crowflight Minerals Inc. has delivered its first nickel concentrate shipment from its Bucko Lake mine in Manitoba following that mine’s reopening in April.
The company (TSX:CML) shipped about 85 tonnes of the concentrate to global mining giant Xstrata’s smelter in Sudbury, Ontario, on June 22. The mine processes approximately 600 tonnes of ore per day.
Crowflight’s first shipment has been long awaited and it follows operational changes and a legal battle that Crowflight executives would rather forget.
Crowflight had to shut down its mine operations in Manitoba because that province’s mine safety branch had to OK the company’s decision to stop using mining contractors.
(See “Crowflight’s Bucko mine resumes operations” – BIV Daily News; April 25.)
Crowflight had previously used mining contractors such as Dumas Consulting Ltd. – an employment relationship that ended with a lawsuit.
In March, Crowflight announced that it had settled a $7.1 million legal claim that Dumas filed in January.
“We haven’t been paid,” Dumas COO Andy Fearn told Business in Vancouver at the time.
Fearn said Dumas had stopped providing the mining construction services to Crowflight that the company had provided since 2007 at the Bucko Lake mine. (See “Former mining contractor files suit against Crowflight” – BIV Daily News; January 10.)
Glen Korstrom
Twitter: GlenKorstrom