The Matagami mine has kept the local communities involved. �We want to make sure it�s [having] a positive impact and not a negative impact...on existing residents,� Director of Health, Safety and Environment Paul Deveau says.

Premier Business Partners:

Cattron Group International Hatch Dumas Contracting Ltd. Schneider Electric Blais & Langlois The Town of Matagami Geodefor Inc. Les Industries Blais Fournier et Fils Inc.

As the fifth-largest zinc producer in the world, Canada has maintained a steady grip on the mining industry for years. Matagami Mine in Matagami, Quebec, Canada, which is a new division of Zug, Switzerland-based Xstrata , is a solid example, Vice President of Mining Operations Jean Desrosiers says.

“We are No. 1 in both [zinc] refining and mining,” he asserts. “We want to grow. We are not satisfied to sit tight; we want to produce and mine more metal than anybody else in the world.”

In 2006, Xstrata acquired Canadian miner Falconbridge and has since invested approximately $145 million (Canadian) in the development of the Perseverance zinc mine in Matagami, which is 800 kilometers north of Montreal. “The mine was discovered in 2000, and [Falconbridge] completed a feasibility study in 2004, except at that point in time the market was very bad, so we put the project on the shelf,” Desrosiers explains.

“In 2006, when the price of zinc started to move in the right direction, we went back at it with an updated and positive feasibility study, decided to include it in our growth strategy and went ahead and built a new mine. With prices at $1 or $1.05, clearly it should be a very good project.”

He says the mine is expected to extract 2,600 tonnes of high-quality zinc ore each day and produce 225,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate annually. Perseverance has resources of 5.1 million tonnes with a grading of 15.8 percent zinc, 1.24 percent copper, 29 grams of silver per tonne, and 0.38 grams of gold per tonne.

The mine’s expected production life is at least five-and-a-half years; however, “hopefully we might be able to stretch one more year if the prices are maintained at this level,” Desrosiers says. “While the size of the Perseverance deposit will allow only a relatively short operating life, the investment will nevertheless give the community a seven- to eight-year period to pursue greater economic diversification.”

In fact, before Falconbridge became a division of Xstrata, the company was forced to let go of 200 employees after a depleted mining operation called Bell-Allard shut down in fall 2004. The first thing Matagami did, Desrosiers says, was to invite all of Falconbridge’s former employees back to work on Perseverance.

“We moved quite a bit of our staff to other operations in other parts of Canada, and now we are asking them if they are interested in going back to Matagami,” he explains. “Basically, 95 percent of the people that moved two years ago are coming back. Most of the people in Matagami like the outdoors and it’s a beautiful area. When the old mine was shut down, most of the people did not stay here because they didn’t have jobs. They seem very excited to return.”

Matagami will employ about 225 people when the mine begins full operations this July. Half will be former Falconbridge employees who were let go in 2004, and the other half will include miners relocating from other mining operations. In addition, the company intends to entice a younger labor pool into the industry, Desrosiers says.

“We’ve put training in place for employees who don’t have previous experience in mining,” he explains. “We are trying to convert or train people from other industries such as forestry or young, under experienced people from the area to join the mining sector. But if we want to have access to enough people, we need to be careful in the way we train.”