PORT DUFFERIN, N.S. – Nova Scotia’s gold mining industry has been dormant for more than a decade, but now it could be on the verge of a renaissance.
In six to eight months, a mine in Port Dufferin, near Sheet Harbour, could be producing gold bars.
“The Dufferin gold mine will be the first functioning Nova Scotia gold mine in about a dozen years, so it’s a very exciting time,” said Sean Kirby, executive director of the Nova Scotia Mining Association.
Exciting because it means new jobs for locals and added revenue for the government.
“We’re going to be hiring 60 to 70 employees and focusing on Nova Scotia,” said Doug Keating, the mine manager. “We do have the people — unfortunately they’ve moved away. Our focus is to bring them back.”
So far, about 14 workers are employed by the mine, operated by Ressources Appalaches.
“I was up in Sudbury for a while, travelling around Canada just to go to different jobs,” says Dwight Kouwenberg, originally from Wallace, N.S.
“Now this one’s close to home. Just 2 hours from home, so that’s a lot better.”
The mine shaft is a dark tunnel that disappears diagonally into the rock. It zigzags downward like a wheelchair ramp, intersecting apexes of quartz where gold is typically found.
Crushed rock is sent up to the surface to be processed. Three-quarters of the gold can be extracted using a gravity-based method — rocks tumble through a drum and gold is pinpointed by its weight. The remaining stone must be processed using biodegradable soap, which captures gold flecks in bubbles that are then skimmed off the top of a stone slurry.
Alain Hupé, president of Ressources Appalaches, says the company is very concerned with preserving the ecosystem around the mine.
He says workers are continuously monitoring groundwater levels. In addition, any water used by the mine is stored for a period of time before it’s released back into the ecosystem. This allows any sediment to settle and prevents nearby ponds from getting filled with silt.
Gold mining is as much about economics as it is geology — as part of the provincial approval process, Ressources Appalaches must show it has a plan to return the site back to the way it was before it arrived. It must also prove it has money set aside to execute that plan.
“The operating price of these mines range anywhere from $500 to $1,000 an ounce to produce,” said Keating. “So if the gold price is in that $500 to $600 range, there’s no margin of profit or cash flow.”
That’s why the mine closed in 2001. While it was being operated by a different company, the price of gold dropped to around $300 per ounce. It cost more to dig up the gold than could be recovered by selling it. It was the last gold mine to operate in Nova Scotia.
After some careful geological surveys and renewed confidence in the market, Ressources Appalaches purchased the land and various pieces of equipment in 2008 for $4 million.
“We’re identifying in the range of 200,000 ounces-plus, just in the small area we’ve drilled off,” said Keating. He’s hopeful the mine will produce up to one million ounces.
With the global market price now hovering near $1,300 per ounce of gold, the mine’s value is around $1 billion.
Nova Scotia stands to reap rewards from the gold extraction through business tax, income tax, royalties and employee spending.
“We will have a huge impact here on the economy in Nova Scotia,” said Keating.
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