The Quintette Coal Project

CIM Bulletin, Vol. 76, No. 853, 1983

D.C. RANGE, Vice-President & General Manager, Operations Quintette Coal Limited

The Quintette Coal Limited property is located in the northeast coal area of British Columbia. A basic agreement with the Japanese steel industry was executed on January 27, 1981 for the sale of 69.5 million tonnes of Quintette metallurgical coal over a 14.5-year period. This contract period can be extended by five years by mutual agreement. Sale agreements have also been signed for the sale of 19.4 million tonnes of oxidized coal over a 15-year period. Work started on site development in the late summer of 1981, and at present, two of the four eventual pits—the McConkey and Frame—are under development. The pits are currently in a prestripping phase. These pits are notable for the stripping volumes that have to be removed from relatively small pit areas. In order to provide for the required detailed rapid short-range planning of these pits, engineering will be computerized, as will the truck dispatch system. The mining area lies 21.1 km from the plant site by road and the transport of raw coal to the plant is by means of a highspeed conveyor system which has a total length of 13.4 km with a vertical drop of 740 m. The surface plant facility was designed on a modularized basis to facilitate maintenance, and is designed to enable the use of gravity flow of raw coal and heavy media in the plant to minimize the use of pumps. The construction of the plant and mine site facilities is ongoing, and the first coal production is scheduled for early December 1983.

Keywords: Coal developments, Northeast B.C., Denison Mines Limited, Quintette Coal Limited, Thermal coal, Metallurgical Coal, Gething Formation, Gates Member, Coal preparation.