Ajax (Canada) The Ajax Project is situated in British Columbia, Canada, approximately 400 km north-east of Vancouver, in the close vicinity of the town of Kamloops. The shareholders of the project are KGHM Polska Miedź S.A. (80 percent) and Abacus Mining & Exploration (20 percent), based in Vancouver.
Ajax’s target is to produce 50,000 tonnes of copper and approximately 100,000 ounces of gold, per year.
In 2014, a new strategy for the mining plant was published, which foresees that the future infrastructure of the Ajax open-pit
mine will be situated further away from the nearest homes in the town of Kamloops, which will reduce the impact of mining on the local communities and environment.
At the same time, to gain better knowledge of the deposit as well as to identify possible additional mineralization, drilling was carried out in the area of the planned open-pit mine, and in its vicinity. An analysis was then conducted aimed at possible technological improvements to the mine, which would allow for optimiziation of the investment and its operating costs and, consequently, would lead to a significant increase in the economic attractiveness of the project.
Ajax
- KGHM Polska Miedź (80 per.)
- Abacus Mining & Exploration (20 per.)
- Reduction of unit production cost in KGHM Group
- ore enrichment plant
- tailings storage facility
- waste rock storage facility
- service facilities for machinery and equipment
- Increase in the production of gold and copper - approx. 50 kt copper/year and approx. 100 k oz of gold per year in concentrate
- Target headcount: around 400 employees
- Engagement in range of charity actions, sponsoring actions and organization of discussion meeting concerning the benefits resulting from Ajax mine construction
- October 2014 – signing of agreement with First Nations
- Monitoring of any impact on the environment throughout the production cycle
- 5 air quality measurement stations
- Ground water monitoring
- In terms of engineering, design work is being carried out on the new tailings storage facility. After completion of this work it will be possible to assess the percentage of recovered water
The adopted schedule will result in the construction of the mining plant in the second half of 2016. The Company assumes that production of the first copper concentrate by the Ajax mine should commence at the end of 2019. The mine will decrease the unit production costs in the KGHM Group.