58 workers laid off as Yukon's Minto Mine closes open pit operation

Yukon's only operating hard rock mine is hunkering down — and literally going underground — to wait out a bad season.

The Minto copper mine closed all of its open-pit mining operations on October 1, meaning that 58 employees contracted through Pelly Construction Ltd. have been laid off.

In April, Minto's general manager said that open pit mining was expected to continue until September of this year, meaning that the decision wasn't unexpected.

However, that doesn't make breaking the news any easier, according to Jennifer Byram, Pelly Construction's vice president of administration.

"It's the worst part of my job," she said. "There are people who have worked for us the entire time we've been at Minto mine for the last 10 and a half years. And although they knew it was coming, it's still not an easy message to deliver."

Most of the people laid off are heavy-equipment operators, safety technicians and mechanics. Byram says Pelly Construction will now have six workers on site.

"Mining is like that," she said. "It's not like having a government job. It's not secure. You know that your work depends on the cycle of metals."

The Minto mine is located about 240 kilometres north of Whitehorse. Its owners said earlier this year that a temporary closure was planned for April 2017 due to declining mineral prices.

Ron Light, Minto's general manager, says that even though open-pit mining is no longer viable, the mine's underground activities collect a higher quality of ore, making the operation viable at current prices.

The market price for Minto's copper comes in at about $2.15 a pound — a far cry from the near $4 per pound it was during previous years of operation.

Light said that about 100 people remain on the Minto site daily, with a total of about 200 employed workers. This includes underground operations, engineering, the mill operation, and support staff such as caterers.

More workers could lose jobs

Light says more workers could soon be laid off.

"Now that we don't have the open pit, we'll be looking to see whether any of the support staff needs to be scaled back," he said. "There is a potential that we will scale back further... but the major one was (losing) the open-pit contract.

"I think we do whatever we can to survive. That means trying to get our costs down and keep our operation running maybe as lean as we can for as long as we can."

Light says layoffs could mean "a dozen or so people in the next six months."

Light says the company will check mineral prices and reassess its decision to close the open pit in the future.

"We're going to do our best to keep as many people employed as long as we can, and keep our operation viable. But market conditions are going to dictate what actually takes place," he said.

"Certainly, I think we're doing everything we can."