Thiess celebrates start of Vale’s Stobie open pit project

Thiess Mining, the contract miner for the Stobie nickel-copper open pit project near Sudbury, Ont., celebrated the start of work by inviting Canada’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources the Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, community leaders, and key stakeholders to join in marking the start of the project.

The owner, Vale SA (NYSE: VALE), has partnered with Theiss, local first Nations, two United Steel Workers locals to restart mining at one of the Sudbury area’s most prolific producers.

The historic Stobie mine was originally developed as an open pit that began production in 1890. Underground ore was mined from 1914 to 2017, ultimately producing 375 million tonnes of nickel-copper ore. In a sense, the restart of open pit mining serves to bookend the mine’s history.

Reimagining the future for the Stobie pit is budgeted at $205 million. Up to $8.4 million will come through Canada’s Critical Minerals Infrastructure fund.

Thiess is an Australian company, and Stobie project is a welcome inroad for the company. “Sudbury is a strong mining district and it’s part of our strategic growth,” Darrell White, Thiess Mining’s group executive for the Americans, told the crowd at the opening earlier this month. Thiess will take the project through to decommissioning when mining is complete in about four years.

More information about Stobie is available on the Vale Base Metals website at www.Vale.com/Canada.