Imperial Metals Corp T.III

Pierre Lebel powers Red Chris mine toward production

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https://www.vancouversun.com/business/Pierre+Lebel+powers+Chris+mine+toward+production/9812579/story.html

About 490 workers, including welders, electricians and millwrights, are on-site at Red Chris completing the open-pit mine on a site 80 kilometres south of Dease Lake near Hwy 37. The price tag to build the mine is an estimated $500 million, and commissioning is scheduled for the summer.

“This is crunch time,” Lebel said. “Every day counts.”

Red Chris is located in the traditional territory of the Tahltan First Nation, whose leadership initially opposed the project on environmental grounds. Members of the Tahltan are now involved in both mine site and power line construction, and the company is finalizing an impacts and benefits agreement with the First Nation after extensive community meetings, Lebel said.It will be the province’s first mine to tap into the 344-kilometre, 287-kilovolt Northwest Transmission Line, which snakes north from Terrace through mountainous terrain to Bob Quinn Lake, north of Stewart. Imperial is building the 95-km Iskut Extension to the NTL, part of a deal the company reached with Victoria that will see BC Hydro purchase the power line extension from Imperial.

When you’re building a capital-intensive mine in remote northern British Columbia, it helps to have a partner with deep pockets, and Imperial does. Oilpatch billionaire N. Murray Edwards — Canada’s 18th richest person with a net worth of about $2.2 billion, according to Forbes — is the company’s majority shareholder and has helped finance mine construction.

Best known as chairman of oilsands giant Canadian Natural Resources, the low-key business tycoon owns about 36 per cent of Imperial’s outstanding shares, a stake worth about $373 million at Tuesday’s closing price of $13.80.

Edwards is a “familiar face” at the Red Chris work site and a “very engaged partner” to senior management, Lebel said.

“It always amazes me the depth of Murray’s understanding and his ability to retain details and names and events of the past,” Lebel said. “He engages people as he goes along. People really respond well to him.”