Inco must make discovery in Sudbury soon 'ore else': Sudbury's Nickel Giant hopes a $5-million investment in a new mining research centre of excellence will aid its plans to stay in the Nickel City for another 100 years.

Finding future metal deposits in Sudbury is akin to peeling the layers of an onion.

For Alex Henderson, Inco's manager of business planning and mines technical services, and those in the exploration group, it's "ore else" if another major Sudbury deposit isn't discovered within the next few years.

The development of leading edge technology to find new ore bodies and mine them more economically is a key element of the nickel mining giant's long-term strategy to remain in Sudbury for another 100 years.

As world metal prices have shot up, many of Inco's underground mines are nearing the end of their operating life, with most of the shafts having been sunk in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The search is on to find another major mine by 2011, after which the company expects to see a dramatic drop-off in production between 2015 and 2021.

Given that it takes between eight and 12 years lead time to bring an underground mine into production, the sooner, the better, says Henderson.

"We have four or five years to find another major deposit that will support a new mine."

Exploration and deep mining will be among the key research projects at the proposed Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI). This spring, the company contributed $5 million to the future R & D institute that will be located on the Laurentian University campus in Sudbury.

"We are now mining at depths greater than any other operation in the base metals industry," Inco North America-Europe president Mark Cutifani said this spring in making their funding announcement for the proposed $30-million centre.

"Innovation (and) application of technology is absolutely critical for us in terms of creating our long-term future in Sudbury."

Henderson uses the term "no seeums" in describing the hidden reserves of copper, PGM's (platinum group metals) and other minerals existing in their properties that are not easily visible to the eye.

While Inco's Sudbury operations have historically been geared to nickel mining and processing, PGM's are now an extremely valuable by-product. But getting a definite picture of where to find these metals is still a work in progress.

Inco has re-tapped old drill holes, driving directly into the Sudbury basin's footwalls to find copper zones and the PGM's associated with them. But within the last five years, there's been a realization they're not necessarily related to copper zones, but have layers of their own.

"The strategy associated with finding copper zones was pretty simple, but the strategy associated with finding PGM's is still unknown," says Henderson. No one bothered to assay old drill cores for PGM's, but there remain huge opportunities for unexplored material in old mines.

With the formation of CEMI, Henderson is developing a research strategy that will drive their initiatives into collaborations with the university.

In the past three years, Inco has shifted the focus of mines research and technology work from high-end R & D that was "10 years out" to more short-term, technical service-oriented development.

"There was no clear strategy as to what would be the deliverables," adds Ike Isagon, Inco's supervisor of engineering and technical services.

Henderson, who was then working for De Beers Canada, agrees that there seemed to be a "disconnect" between what Operations needed versus what Research was working on.

"To a certain extent, Research lost credibility with Operations."

The focus of R & D had to be on the development aspect.

At CEMI, some of the work will be closely guarded proprietary technology belonging to Inco, but Henderson says generally the mining industry has always gathered to share ideas and collaborate on projects at various forums and through mining research institutes.

This time, instead of the research being fragmented, CEMI and its industry partners can take on bigger, leading-edge projects in exploration, mining processes, deep mine research and environmental work.

There will be many challenges ahead, to not only find new deposits but also take some smaller known deposits and make them work efficiently and economically.

Advanced technology and surging metal prices have brought the Totten and Kelly Lake properties, with high PGM components, back onto the radar screen. And they are counting on new deposits near Copper Cliff South Mine, Pump Lake and Victor to come on stream by 2016.

Henderson, who is preparing Inco's annual Life of Mine Plan, which targets future exploration and engineering work, says Kelly Lake doesn't appear to have enough ore to support a 6,000 tonne-per-day operation, but is more likely about half that.

"One of our challenges in the 2006 plan (is) to find that additional 3,000 tonnes."

Fueled by surging metal prices, there are opportunities for low-grade open pits of near surface nickel and copper that can easily be accessed. To bring these properties into production takes only two to four years, as opposed to eight to 12 years with an underground mine.

Smaller deposits such as Gertrude West, Murray and Blezard will either be brought into production or are in advanced stages of assessment.

www.inco.com

By IAN ROSS 

Northern Ontario Business