Environment and water management
ESG triumphs
While mining activities may increasingly occur in remote areas as twenty-first century explorers carve out new niches harnessing the powers of modern technology and inherited geological knowledge, no part of the industry functions in true isolation from the broader Québec community. Mining activities are intimately connected with their surrounding environment, and companies rely on the support of local communities and indigenous groups for both labor and a social license to operate. In August 2022, Québec’s Prime Minister François Legault assuaged concerns of his constituents, assuring them that, “there is no mining project that will be carried out without social acceptability.”
Many mining companies are working overtime on their commitments to uphold high ESG standards, fighting the shackles of an industrial legacy of waste and destruction. In this battle, engineering and consulting firms play a crucial role in equipping their mining clients with innovative tools that cut carbon consumption, minimize noise and dust pollution, and increase resource management. Decisions have to be made between higher prices for materials in alignment with certain ESG standards and the perennial urge to lower development and operating costs. The extent to which this tradeoff will happen, and who is footing the bill, are two important conversations to be had.
In certain cases, the tradeoff between cost and innovation has no easy answer. Procon, a mine development contractor that opened its regional hub in Val-d’Or four years ago, plans to switch its fleet to battery electric equipment. Yet the transition will take time, and it will be costly. In the current economy, Christian Bourcier, vice president of Procon Canada East, finds it difficult to justify the investment when his clients continue to ask for the lowest cost possible. “Right now, working with diesel equipment is the cheapest. We find ourselves in a Catch-22: Go the more expensive route and lose contracts, or do things the current way,” explained Bourcier.
At other times, investments into innovation become shared burdens amongst various stakeholders within the industry. Fournier & Fils, a Val-d’Or-based construction company, believes the future of mining is electric, which is why Fournier decided to supply a truck to Nouveau Monde Graphite in support of the vision to have a fully electric mine. “We know there is still a lot of ground to cover before there can be a full fleet of electric trucks at a mine site in a way that is efficient and profitable, and we also recognize that as a key player in the industry it is our role to step up,” explained president Jérémi Fournier. “If nobody tries, nothing will happen.”
Fournier & Fils also creates project specific ESG reports based on its operations for clients to incorporate the information into their own metrics of reporting, at the forefront of what they believe may become a standard industry practice. For its part, SNC-Lavalin has been assisting its clients in calculating and assessing their carbon performance since the early 1990s. Most recently, the company launched its Decarbonomics platform to accelerate the mining industry’s shift to net zero. “Decarbonomics is a data-driven end-to-end services platform solution where we identify all carbon emissions from the built environment onsite and design a roadmap for cost effective carbon reduction,” explained Dominic Tremblay, vice president of the company’s mining and metallurgy segment in Québec.
Having access to clear metrics enables companies seeking to minimize their environmental footprint to identify areas for improvement. Such tools fit into a trend towards taking a more individualized approach in measuring and mitigating one’s environmental impact. ESG targets should not and cannot be treated as one-size-fits-all objectives.
In this regard, while larger construction firms are making significant headway into the Québec market, such as SNC-Lavalin’s establishment of a business segment in the province and BBA Consultants’ decision to take advantage of the flourishing of activity by opening offices in Val-d’Or and Rouyn-Noranda, the civil engineering firm Norinfra believes one of its most pronounced competitive advantages in the region is the deep understanding its talent has of the regional environment. “Our employees have more than 30 years of experience in doing civil engineering work for the regional mining sector,” said Martin Drouin, a project manager and associate at the company. “Because of this, we are familiar with the climate, soil, and permitting specifications. This is important, as civil engineers should be experts on their region.”
Additionally, companies operating within the province enjoy access to more environmentally friendly sources of fuel. While many are familiar with Hydro-Québec, DGSC (Distributed Gas Solutions Canada) provides a different type of energy. The company specializes in turnkey compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply solutions for industrials not connected to the pipeline or for transportation end users. "Natural gas is the cleanest burning fossil fuel. At the point of combustion, it reduces greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 18% compared with propane, in addition to air pollutant reductions," explained the company's vice president of business development and marketing, Andrew Wilkins. "DGSC has been at the forefront of introducing the concept of a virtual pipeline supply of natural gas in Québec."
Water management
In mining jurisdictions like Chile and Peru, the natural environment presents operators with a challenge when it comes to accessing water. In 2021, Arizona-based exploration company Resolution Copper faced backlash for its proposed use of 250 billion gallons of water in a region in crisis, with concerns mounting until the issue reached the attention of the US Congress. In several parts of Québec, however, an opposite challenge arises. The province has a positive water balance, meaning mining companies must look for various reuse applications to deal with the volume of water they need to remove from site. As mines become more remote in the far northern reaches of the province, transporting this water becomes all the more difficult.
In April 2022, SANEXEN launched its ALTRA 3D high-performance hose that is designed to transport minerals, water, and other fluids in mining environments in a flexible design that can withstand harsh environmental conditions and climate-related challenges. A subsidiary of LOGISTEC, SANEXEN specializes in contaminated site remediation and water main rehabilitation, and the company is confident its new product will be a value add to the sector. “I believe the ALTRA 3D hose will be a game changer for the mining industry, as water-related challenges will only intensify over the next few years,” commented Marie-Chantal Savoy, vice president of strategy and communications.
Climate-related challenges are a top concern for mining companies and the engineering firms that assist them in the province. Seasons are pronounced, and winters are particularly harsh. Having the right tools to work through these changes in conditions can drastically impact the amount of work a company is able to accomplish in a year. In addition to collaborating with Eldorado Gold to develop and commercialize ECOMUD, a solution to treat the sludge and water generated from mining drilling and construction-related activities, the Canadian engineering and project management firm ASDR announced the acquisition of ECO Technologies in May 2022 as part of a broader effort to expand its water treatment and management services. Importantly, the acquisition will allow ASDR to provide these services even in harsh winter conditions. “The acquisition will stabilize our dredging service by allowing icebreaking activities and the environmental services to happen further into the winter,” president Stephen Authier explained. “In Québec, winters can be harsh enough to temporarily halt operations, so extending the seasonality of our work is a huge plus.”
“Fournier creates project specific ESG reports including information relating to safety and environmental management as well as community relations. This is not something most contractors do, although I believe it will become a trend in the future.”
Jérémi Fournier, President, Fournier & Fils
As the technology being adopted by the mining industry rapidly evolves, water technology is no exception. Of the various services Veolia offers its mining clients, the company is seeing a strong shift in interest towards digitalization to optimize their water systems. David Oliphant, vice president of business development for the company’s water technologies segment in Canada, sees his company’s Hubgrade smart digital solutions platform as a way for companies to more easily navigate legal requirements and to receive direct access to Veolia’s experts, which is particularly important in more remote applications where in-person advisory can be near impossible. Oliphant believes the solution can help clients get in front of problems with their facilities before these issues occur: “Hubgrade allows us to share data points with clients giving preventative maintenance foresight for their plant."
Québec-based Nordikeau has offered services for all stages of the water cycle since 1994, working on several active mines in the province including for ArcelorMittal and Rio Tinto. To stay relevant in the increasingly competitive environmental services space, the company continues to expand its offerings, such as its development of a marine drone that will be used in sedimentation basins to assess the quantities of sediment. In May 2022, Nordikeau announced the launch of its Nordicity platform, a digital solution that optimizes data gathering throughout different stages of the water cycle by using artificial intelligence. “This data provides us a global view that helps us go further in our diagnosis and operations optimization in order to be more efficient when urgent situations arise,” said Jean-François Bergeron, the company’s president.
As the regulatory framework for mining evolves and investors and the general public alike place greater demands on mining companies to operate in an environmentally sound manner, water management and water treatment processes can no longer be treated as an afterthought. “As regulations change, companies have to think differently about water treatment, and investments into water management must be made from the beginning,” commented Marie-Claude St-Pierre, environmental director of GCM Consultants, an engineering and construction company headquartered in Montreal.
For this reason, her company takes a progressive restoration approach, in which they conduct various studies to evaluate how water can be reduced and recycled during the tailings treatment process prior to recommending the appropriate system. In this way, they hope to eliminate the need for refurbishment of facilities every few years alongside changes in regulation.
In many ways, mining companies operating in Québec have the opportunity to stay ahead of water treatment requirements thanks to the progressive technologies of service providers. H2O Innovation's president Frederic Dugre believes this is one of the province's assets. "In environmentally advanced mining provinces like Québec, being able to provide membrane filtration that results in better quality of water output and does not negatively impact the surrounding environment is a huge advantage," he said.
“Technology providers like H2O will need to start providing new solutions that do not rely on desalination but rather focus on how water can be reused into our processes to reduce our own water consumption and eventually become water neutral.”
Frederic Dugre, President and CEO, H2O Innovation
Exporting quality
While Québec boasts several regions that draw the attention of exploration companies and investors worldwide, the province does its fair share of exporting as well. This is true not only of the materials it produces but also of the culture, experience, and expertise of its service providers. Régis Côté of Fordia recalls a moment in which he recognized the extent to which his hometown made a difference on a global scale: “I remember being in the DRC when a driller recognized the Fordia logo on my suit. There, in a very remote place, they had been trained to drill by people from Val-d’Or.”
G Mining Services is a mining consultancy firm that has cast a global shadow from its headquarters in Brossard. The company, whose services cover underground and open pit projects from greenfield to operating mines, recently opened an office in Quito, Ecuador, and hired a 100% local staff to help meet the needs of the market, including the work it is doing to lead construction efforts at the Fruta del Norte project for Lundin Gold. In addition to other projects the company has taken on in Latin America and Africa, G Mining Services is working on detail engineering work with partner company G Mining Ventures for their Tocantinzinho project.
“Our work in different countries has granted us the ability to compare what it is like to operate in different mining jurisdictions,” commented Michael Gignac, VP finance, noting the main differences he has seen deal with regulations, bureaucracy, and taxation. “There are a lot of unforeseen, special rules that can come up and catch you off guard. You need to be flexible, open minded, and creative in how to work through these challenges.”
For a province with a population of 8.5 million people, Québec’s mining industry plays an outsized role on an international scale.
Image courtesy of Nouveau Monde Graphite