Agnico Eagle’s $3.3B Hope Bay mine moving ahead

Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. is moving ahead with its third gold mine in Nunavut — the Hope Bay gold complex, located 150 kilometres southwest of Cambridge Bay.

The board has approved a $3.3-billion investment to develop the site, with “initial production” starting as early as 2030, according to a company news release.

“This includes the core infrastructure needed to build and operate safely and reliably in Nunavut,” said CEO Ammar Al-Joundi during Tuesday’s ceremony at the Hope Bay site.

Among other upgrades, the work may include building a high capacity processing facility, a 37-megawatt power plant with heat recovery, water management infrastructure and fuel and logistics systems, he said.

Once finished, Hope Bay could produce 400,000 to 435,000 ounces of gold annually. The company expects it to create some 2,000 jobs and to have an 11-year lifespan, Al-Joundi said, but it has the potential to go “long beyond the initial plan.”

Agnico Eagle, headquartered in Toronto, acquired the site from TMAC Resources Inc. for approximately $260.7 million in January 2021. Initially, it was Chinese, state-owned firm Shandong Gold Mining Co. that wanted to buy the site, but the federal government rejected that deal in December 2020 after a national security review.

Agnico Eagle also owns the Meliadine and Meadowbank mines in the Kivalliq. Hope Bay will be Nunavut’s fifth mine along with B2Gold’s Goose Mine and Baffinland’s Mary River iron ore mine.

During the same Tuesday event, the federal government announced that it has earmarked $25 million for a wind project in Hope Bay.

“Building new clean energy will enable responsible resource development, enhance our energy security, improve affordability for northerners, while supporting local jobs and economic development,” said energy and natural resources minister Tim Hodgson.

The project will include a single turbine built by Inuit-owned Kitikmeot Tugliq Limited Partnership. It will bring 4.2 megawatts of wind power and four megawatts of battery storage to the mine.

It is set to reduce the mine’s annual diesel consumption by three million litres and greenhouse gas emissions by over 8,000 tonnes per year.

The turbine will account for about half of the mine’s future energy consumption, Al-Joundi said.

Both Agnico Eagle and the Department of National Defence signed a memorandum of understanding, in which the company committed to “sharing knowledge and information” on how to deliver large infrastructure projects in the North, said Hodgson, who signed the document.

“This knowledge will be critical as the Canadian Armed Forces expands their presence and readiness in the North in order to defend and strengthen our sovereignty,” he said.