Unimin to close mine
Unimin confirms the Nephton mine will close in 2020, but Blue Mountain operation will be expanding.
Nepheline mining company Unimin Canada is going to expand operations at one of its two facilities north of Havelock and close the other by 2020.
Unimin’s Nephton mine will close, stated a company spokesperson, while its Blue Mountain operation will be substantially modernized.
About 100 people work at the Nephton site, wrote Unimin North America communications manager Mariane Ceballo in a statement released to The Examiner on Friday.
Ceballo didn’t mention whether jobs would be transferred from one plant to the other when the Nephton mine closes.
But she did write that Unimin will work with the union and those 100 employees of the Nephton plant to arrive at “mutually effective adjustment measures”.
Ceballo also outlined some of the upgrades that will be made at the Blue Mountain site.
The plan is to add new technology to reduce noise and dust, for instance, and also modernize operations so they consume less water and electricity.
Unimin will be making a multimillion dollar investment in these upgrades, Ceballo wrote, and it will help the company keep people employed “for many more decades.”
For the next two years the Nephton site will remain open and fully operational, Ceballo added.
Unimin mines an industrial mineral called nepheline, which is used in products such as glass, ceramics and polymers.
About 200 employees work at the two facilities together, which are accessed from County Rd. 46 about a half an hour north of Havelock. The company has operated there for about 80 years.
The plan to close one site and upgrade the other has been contemplated by Unimin for about three years.
It was still unclear on Friday what will become of the buildings and tailings pond at the Nephton plant once operations cease. Ceballo said more information would be released about the plans early in January.
On Thursday, the federal and provincial governments announced they are contributing $65,000 each to a study into increasing the freight rail capacity on the Blue Mountain-Havelock-Peterborough-Toronto freight rail line used by Unimin.