Miners take interest in airship development

The buzz around airships has caught the attention of mining companies, which are desperate for ways of reducing their transportation expenses in the North.

Later this month Abraham Drost, president of Sabina Resources, will give a speech at the “Airships to the Arctic” conference in Winnipeg about what the mining industry wants from companies trying to invent different varieties of the airship. His company is drilling in Nunavut at the silver and zinc-rich Hackett River base metal property.

Theoretically, companies could use their airships to airlift several heavy equipment trucks at a time, or a crucial piece of equipment for processing precious metals, to a Nunavut mine at any time of the year.

Barry Prentice, a professor and director of the Transport Institute at the University of Manitoba said mining infrastructure projects such as the Bathurst Inlet Road and Port Project in the Kitikmeot region would become obsolete.

A mining executive for a gold mine project near Baker Lake said his company would consider using airships to cut costs in the future.

But the airship industry still has to finish their research and set prices for their product, said Brad Thiele, vice-president of Meadowbank projects for Cumberland Resources.

Thiele said mining companies would consider using tested airships, to avoid the expense of shipping cargo by truck, train, then ship, and finally all-terrain vehicles.

“There’s all kinds of reasons there’s nothing happening in Nunavut,” Thiele said, “And that’s one of the biggest reasons, is the cost of transportation and logistics. We’re fighting with that full-time… trying to get this gold mine off the ground.”