Hudbay Minerals to shutter Flin Flon mine

Hudbay Minerals Inc. says it will close its mine in Flin Flon, Man., in 2021, ending hopes it would maintain a threadbare workforce in the town where it employed more than 800 people.

In a memo this week, Robert Assabgui, vicepresident of Hudbay’s Manitoba Business Unit, told employees the company had hoped to keep the zinc plant operational, but can’t find enough ore to make it feasible. “Despite a lot of work over the past few years, the most likely scenario is that mining operations will cease in Flin Flon in 2021,” Assabgui wrote in the memo. “As a result, the Flin Flon mill will also cease operations.”

The company said it hopes to transition some of the Flin Flon employees to its operations in Snow Lake, about 210 kilometres away, where it mines and processes copper and zinc.

Most of the zinc is shipped

We’re still fairly confident that there’ll be mines in the area, they may just not be right in Flin Flon.

to Flin Flon for processing. But the volume of zinc from Hudbay’s Lalor mine near Snow Lake isn’t enough by itself to sustain the entire Flin Flon plant.

Assabgui expressed doubt that the company would find enough zinc feed by 2021 to keep the Flin Flon plant operational.

Flin Flon mayor Cal Huntley called it a “significant change” in the history of the town, which was founded in the 1930s. “There was always another mine,” Huntley said. Now, the town’s luck appears to have dried up. This time, “it doesn’t appear that there’s (going to be) another mine.”

Located near the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border, Flin Flon is surrounded by lakes. Base and precious metals are richly found throughout the area, and Huntley estimates there have been 30 mines in the past century. “We’re still fairly confident that there’ll be mines in the area, they may just not be right in Flin Flon,” he said.

Hudbay said about 300 of its Flin Flon employees will be eligible for retirement before 2021. Other employees may be able to transition to Snow Lake, where Hudbay also owns a gold mill that could be brought online to process about 68,000 ounces of gold, and some silver, produced at its Lalor Mine.

But Huntley said that may displace some of the contractors who have been working in Hudbay ’s Snow Lake operations.

Lalor, with its zinc, copper, gold and silver production, only has a nine-year mine life, Hudbay said.