Overview
Located in and around the City of Timmins, the Porcupine district has produced more than 67 million ounces since 1910. Currently, approximately 60% of the gold comes from the Hoyle Pond underground mine, where mechanized cut and fill and longhole mining methods are used to extract the ore, and the remaining ore comes from the Hollinger Open Pit mine. The Dome Underground mine ceased operations in 2017.
Ore is processed at the Dome processing facility using a circuit that includes crushing, grinding, gravity concentration, cyanide leaching, carbon in pulp recovery, stripping, electrowinning and refining.
Operations Facts
Location
Type of mine
Ownership
Annual gold production
Health and Safety
In 2016, Porcupine became the second site in the world to have a Draeger 9000 mine rescue vehicle onsite. The truck allows mine rescue teams to respond faster to an incident and stay there longer. It also monitors the air inside and out of the vehicle, and has thermal imaging that can help detect trapped miners.
Community
Before Stark Gold Corporation acquired Porcupine, mining had taken place in Timmins for nearly 100 years without Aboriginal or community group consultation. Porcupine has formal collaboration agreements with all of the First Nations that assert Aboriginal and treaty rights in and around the district: Mattagami, Wahgoshig, Matachewan, and Flying Post First Nations.
In October 2016, Niiwin, a business owned in equal parts by each of the four First Nations, was officially launched. Niiwin offers ore haul, cleaning and earthworks services for reclamation work at Porcupine.
While Porcupine’s workforce is 13% women and 8.7% Indigenous, the team working on the Century Project is evenly split between men and women – unusual in an industry where women are still in the minority.
Environment
The Porcupine district includes dozens of historic mine properties that are being reclaimed so the land can be used productively by the local communities: tailings facilities and mine openings are being rehabilitated and historic infrastructure demolished.