Production at Hudbay Minerals Inc.’s 777 Mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba, has been temporarily suspended due to an incident that occurred on October 9 during routine maintenance of the hoist rope and skip, which is the bucket used to hoist ore from underground. The hoist rope detached from the skip, causing the skip to fall to the bottom of the shaft. There were no injuries and all underground personnel were safely evacuated from the mine using the secondary ramp access.
An inspection of the damage to the shaft is under way and it is expected to take several weeks to fully assess the damage and the remedial work needed. In the meantime, the company said it has notified its insurers and has implemented its business continuity plans to mitigate potential impacts to production from the Manitoba business unit. This includes reassigning equipment and personnel to the Lalor mine in Snow Lake and continuing to operate the zinc plant by processing available zinc concentrate inventory and optimizing the production of zinc concentrate from the Snow Lake operations.
“This was an unfortunate event, but we are thankful there were no injuries and that our safety protocols were closely followed,” Hudbay President and Chief Executive Officer Peter Kukielski said. “We have an exceptional team in Manitoba who have proven their ability to overcome challenging situations time and time again, and I am confident they will remedy this challenging situation safely and efficiently.”
The company said it will provide a further update once it has a better understanding of the remedial work required to resume production at 777.
