Campbell Gold Mine, Ontario, Canada

In continuous operation since 1949, since when it has produced over 11Moz of gold, the Campbell underground gold mine is located at Balmertown, northwestern Ontario. Formerly wholly owned by Placer Dome Inc., the mine is now owned by Goldcorp Inc., following Placer’s take-over by Barrick Gold Corp. in early 2006. Barrick subsequently sold several former Placer properties to Goldcorp, especially where there was the potential for operational synergies between neighbouring mines.
Goldcorp has now merged Campbell with its existing Red Lake mine as one operating unit, with the combined operation expected to have an output of around 1Moz/y of gold by 2008.


GEOLOGY AND RESERVES
Campbell is located in the eastern part of the Red Lake Greenstone Belt, in the Birch Lake/Uchi Lake sub-province of the Canadian Shield. The auriferous zones occur on the eastern border of a major archean tholeiitic volcanic complex. The gold occurs as either free gold or is in sulphide minerals, mainly arsenopyrite, pyrite and pyrrhotite. A minor amount of silver occurs with the gold.
As of December 2005, proven and probable ore reserves stood at 5.5Mt grading 8.2g/t and containing 1.45Moz of gold. Measured and indicated mineralisation contained a further 1.83Moz.
MINE LAYOUT AND DEVELOPMENT
Mine access is through two separate shafts – No.1 shaft is a four-compartment shaft sunk to below 27 level (1316m below surface). The Reid shaft opened up more than 600 vertical metres of new ground below 27 level, and is now the main ore hoisting shaft.
The mine is track-based with full haulage facilities on every level. Electric LHDs and hydraulic longhole drills are used in high-tonnage areas. Mining methods have evolved from shrinkage stoping through cut-and-fill and finally to longhole mining. Longhole mining includes sub-level and crown pillar operations mine-wide and accounts for 75% of production with cut-and-fill producing another 2%. The remaining 23% is from development.
Mechanised cut-and-fill commenced in 2001 and will be preferred over conventional longhole where feasible. Pastefill totally replaced hydraulic fill in the final quarter of 2000 to speed mining.