Having a change of heart: Dome Mine to remain operational in Timmins.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: Mining

The Timmins mining community got some unexpected good news in July when Porcupine Gold Mines (PGM)-Goldcorp announced it would keep Dome Mine operational, contrary to an earlier decision that had the 106-year-old underground gold mine scheduled to close for good by October's end.

An upswing in gold prices, primarily, pushed PGM's executive team to reassess the mine's value, resulting in the change of heart.

Brendan Zuidema, PGM's former mine manager, made the announcement on July 20, and said the decision helped elevate morale throughout the community.

"There's some optimism with where metal prices have been heading over the last year or so, but with talk about shutting things down with the Dome announcement earlier this year, you almost started to see some doom and gloom," he said.

"But now with the prices going up and this announcement, there's some optimism in the city for sure."

Though "none of us have a crystal ball," the team at PGM is confident in the continuing increase in gold prices, he said.

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Discovered in 1909, Dome is the last of the "big three" original gold mines--Hollinger, McIntyre and Dome--that has made Timmins one of the world's most prolific mining camps.

Although some work had started on the closure process, PGM had announced in early June that it was extending its original closing date of July 31 by three months to the end of October, and so there was minimal work to be done to get back on track after the decision to close was reversed, Zuidema said.

When PGM first announced it was closing Dome, it said 115 employees and 75 contractors would be impacted by the decision. While there was some shuffling around of staff, no one had been laid off, Zuidema said.

Some former Dome employees who had experience working in open-pit mines were transferred out of Dome and into the developing Hollinger Mine. Those people will likely be transferred back to Dome and PGM will need to hire people for Hollinger.

A few more were transferred to Hoyle Pond, while others went to the mill, and a few transferred to Goldcorp's Eleonore Mine in Quebec.

"We had backfilled everybody, basically, with contractors at the Dome Mine because there's no sense hiring people if you're only going to be open for a few months," Zuidema said.

"So the amount of people won't change, (but) there'll be quite a bit of bumping now back into the mine, which will mean we'll have to hire for some of...