The Australian miner first began mining at Touquoy in 2017, reaching commercial production a year after. The processing plant at Touquoy is a conventional carbon-in-leach (CIL) circuit with a nominal capacity of 2 million tonnes per year.
In 2020, St Barbara began the provincial permitting process to convert the Touquoy open pit into a tailings management facility (TMF) upon completion of open pit mining. This longer-term strategy for tailing deposition was implemented to extend the life of the Touquoy mine, following similar paths to Beaver Dam and Fifteen Mile Stream.
However, late in the process, the Nova Scotia Department of Environment and Climate Change (NSECC) sought further clarification on aspects of the in-pit tailings deposition application, which impacted the timeframes for the company’s in-pit tailings solution. At the current rate, construction work on the in-pit tailings infrastructure will not be completed by the…
