Sandvik breaks ground on $51M Saskatoon mining facility

The Saskatchewan mining industry will be seeing a new resource this year, thanks to a multi-million dollar project that will soon begin construction.

Representatives from the Saskatchewan government, the City of Saskatoon and Sandvik marked the start of construction on a new facility Monday that the company says will strengthen the province’s mining and potash sector.

The Sweden-based company is investing $51 million in a mechanical cutting, parts and services facility in Saskatoon aimed at supporting Saskatchewan’s underground mining industry.

“Saskatchewan is the largest potash-producing jurisdiction in the world,” said Thomas Vallant, president of mechanical cutting for Sandvik. “For us, making cutting machines for underground mining, particularly for potash, which is soft enough to cut instead of drill and blast which makes this the perfect place for our business.”

The facility will house a 270-ton mechanical cutting machine powered by more than one megawatt of cutting energy. Vallant said the equipment can produce up to 2,000 tonnes of potash per hour, with material transported away using a specially designed haulage system.

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The concept for the project dates back to 2008. Vallant said a prototype was built in Germany and tested for several years in mining conditions similar to those in Canada before the company committed to building in Saskatoon.

“We wanted to make sure that all the machines are properly working before we make the investment and build the service facility,” he said. “This is probably one of the biggest mining machines that you can find in the world.”

The facility is expected to create 30 skilled jobs.

While Sandvik is funding construction, Peter Corcoran, vice-president of Sandvik’s Canadian operations, said the company plans to work with provincial and federal partners to support specialized training.

“We’ll have a training development centre inside the new building,” Corcoran said. “Our aim is to educate miners on this new, highly technical and specialized equipment, which will require additional curriculum and hands-on training. Which is why we want to partner with some of the colleges and local colleges in the community.”

Sandvik operates in about 150 countries. Corcoran said the company intends to rely heavily on Canadian suppliers for the Saskatoon project, particularly amid ongoing trade uncertainty with the United States.

“Our intent is to find local suppliers who can actually manufacture components for us...so we have partnerships where we manufacture goods in Canada by Canadians and in Saskatoon,” he said. “We need to build that capacity inside the country as much as we can,” Corcoran said.

Vallant said global export restrictions affecting other major potash-producing regions, including Belarus and Russia, present an opportunity for Saskatchewan.

“Potash has to be mined where it exists, and Saskatchewan holds the largest deposit in the world,” he said. “With export restrictions elsewhere, this is an opportunity for Canada to increase production.”

“You have to mine the potash wherever God put it. And this is the biggest deposit in the world [right here] in Saskatchewan,” he said. “The other big areas where potash exists is Belarus and Russia. But they are facing a lot of export restrictions on that product. So this is a very good opportunity for Canada to step up production.”