Canadian Mine Pins Hopes on Underwater Crawlers
November 29, 21
(IDEX Online) - The new owners of Canada's Ekati diamond mine are pinning their hopes on remote-controlled underwater crawlers.
They'll start trials of the technology from 2023 in a bid to extend the life of the deposit It is currently operated as an open-pit and underground mine.
Arctic Canadian Diamond Company, which bought Ekati from financially-troubled Dominion last year, says conventional mining methods will not prove economically viable in the long term.
Rory Moore, Arctic's president and CEO, said: "If we get this technique right, which I'm very confident we will, we've got decades of successful mining ahead for Ekati."
He was speaking at a virtually-held annual geoscience forum in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, last Wednesday.
Ekati will become the first diamond mine to use crawlers. They are deployed in other mining sectors and diamond miners have considered their use in the past, but decided against their use.
The crawlers are being developed jointly with the Netherlands-based Royal IHC, a supplier of maritime technology.
Pic of crawler courtesy Arctic Canadian Diamond Company.