Looks like a good season.Ice road open for light traffic in Canada's Arctic - January 29, 2007 3:45PM ET
By Rachelle Younglai TORONTO, Jan 29 (Reuters) - A road made of
frozen lakes in Canada's Arctic has opened for very light truck
traffic, and diamond mining companies have started transporting
crucial supplies needed for their remote mine sites. The winter
road, which runs about 570 km (355 miles) and is open only when it
is cold enough for lakes to freeze solid enough to support the
weight of a truck, is the only ground route for companies to move
fuel, explosives and equipment to remote mining sites in the
Northwest Territories and Nunavut. "We opened yesterday with a
handful of loads to (diamond mines) Diavik and Ekati," said Tom
Hoefer, spokesman for the Diavik mine, which along with miner BHP
Billiton Ltd. operates the road. "And of course as the ice
thickens we will be transporting more numbers and heavier loads."
On Monday, light loads were being transported to Rio Tinto Ltd.
and Aber Diamond Corp.'s Diavik and BHP Billiton's Ekati diamond
mine, as well as to De Beers' Snap Lake project. So far, the ice
is 27 inches (68 cm) thick and two trucks are leaving every couple
of hours, Hoefer said. At full-load capacity, the ice needs to be
42 inches (107 cm) thick and two trucks would leave every 20
minutes. De Beers Canada's chief executive, Jim Gowans, said on
Monday the company was starting to move equipment over the ice
roads. Snap Lake is expected to start production in the third
quarter of 2007. PREPARING FOR HEAVY TRAFFIC Managers of the
ice road took extra precautions this year after unseasonably warm
weather in 2006 melted part of the road and forced companies to pay
more to fly in supplies. Only 75 percent of the 9,200 loads made
it up the road last year. Diavik had to cut up its large shovel so
that it could fly it in. De Beers had to delay the transportation
of its crusher and scrubber, two pieces of equipment that were each
about a foot too long and too wide to fit on a Hercules -- an
aircraft usually used by the military. Last year's setback,
combined with the fact that nearly 10,000 truckloads are expected
this year, had road operators looking for alternatives. Hoefer
said the road makers started checking on the ice in December and
changed some of their equipment. One machine that is normally used
to measure ice thickness was used as a snowplow. As the machine was
lighter than a regular plow, operators were able to get on the ice
before Jan. 1. "It allowed us to get on the ice when ice was
thinner," said Hoefer. They plowed the road to its width of 160
feet (50 metres) -- wider than a four-lane highway -- and pushed
the snow banks down to reduce the insulating blanket of snow on the
ice. A secondary road that joins the main ice road at about the
70-km (44-mile) mark, will be opened to give operators an
alternative route for empty trucks to travel back south. "It is
to get us around the southern problem we had last year," said
Hoefer. De Beers expects to transport about 1,900 loads this
year, and Tahera Diamond Corp. expects to move about 500 loads to
its Jericho diamond mine in Nunavut. "We are optimistic, that
(companies) will get their fuel as required," said Tahera spokesman
Grant Ewing. "I don't think we will see a year like last year. The
weather and the updates we have gotten ... it looks like it will be
better." Tahera expects the road to Jericho to open around Feb.
10 as the mine is 30 km (20 miles) north of the end of the ice
road.