PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Gold miner St Barbara has flagged the early closure of its Touquoy operations, in Nova Scotia.
The miner on Thursday said it had received requests for information from the Nova Scotian Minister of Environment and Climate Change in response to the environmental assessment of the proposal to deposit tailings into the Touquoy openpit.
The company had initially anticipated Ministerial approval for the in-pit tailings deposition by March 10 this year, and industrial approval by May 23, at which time the Touquoy plant was expected to have sufficient tailings capacity to process all remaining stockpiles.
The miner in January told shareholders that the current tailings management facility is expected to be at capacity early in 2024, meaning any delays in approvals to in-pit tailings would trigger cessation of production at that time.
St Barbara on Thursday said that compilation of the information required to answer the Minister’s questions would take more time than is available before capacity of the existing tailings management facility is reached. As a result, the company anticipates placing the operations into care and maintenance at that time.
St Barbara had last year said that there were sufficient stockpiles in place at Touquoy to ensure continued gold production from the Atlantic operations until December 2024.