Nunavut regulators pass Hope Bay mine’s project certificate to new owners

TMAC Resources, The new owners of the Hope Bay mine near Cambridge Bay received welcome news April 11.

The Nunavut Impact Review Board said that, after having received and reviewed the documentation provided by the Newmont Mining subsidiary, Hope Bay Mining Ltd.,, TMAC and Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, the NIRB would grant Hope Bay Mining’s request and transfer the amended NIRB project certificate to TMAC.

The NIRB had said it couldn’t transfer “the associated regulatory authorizations,” including the project certificate, until the transfer was completed between Newmont and TMAC, which took place last month.

Newmont hit the brakes on Hope Bay in February 2011, putting its completed infrastructure into care and maintenance and sending a big shock wave through the fragile economy of Nunavut’s Kitikmeot region, which lost about 150 jobs.

Between 2009 and 2011, Newmont spent about $290 million on Kitikmeot and Nunavut based businesses, many of them partners or subsidiaries of the Kitikmeot Corp. or the Nunasi Corp.

By the fall of 2012, work on the company’s small underground Doris North mine had ground to a halt and numerous vehicles, drills and supplies were being sold or removed.

Newmont wrote off $1.6 billion worth of its investment in the Hope Bay project and announced it would give priority to other projects within its global collection of mining properties.

Now workers with TMAC, whose representatives attended this past week’s Nunavut Mining Symposium in Iqaluit, are back on site and looking to raise more money to advance the mine project.