Canadian Coal Miner Considers Slurry Pipeline
A mining company in the process of developing a new coal mine near Stewart in British Columbia’s far northwest is looking at the cost of building a pipeline to get its coal to the nearest port. According to The Vancouver Sun, Fortune Minerals announced in late October that it hired an engineering firm to conduct an economic assessment of the cost of transporting coal products from its Mount Klappan site by pipeline. The idea, according to Robin Goad, Fortune Minerals president, is to assess whether alternative methods of conveying coal to the port of Stewart or Prince Rupert would mitigate the impacts of a stronger Canadian dollar and increasing fuel costs, and reduce the environmental impact with the use of existing transportation corridors. The pipeline assessment will look at possible production rates of between 1.5 million mt and 3 million mt of clean coal per year along three different route options from the mine site located 330 km northeast of the port of Prince Rupert.