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Canada

Totten Mine

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Totten Mine

Location: 35 km SW from Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Regional Office:

337 Power Street
Copper Cliff
Ontario, Canada
P0M 1N0

Contacts:

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Categories

Overview

Mine TypeUnderground
StatusActive
Commodities
  • Nickel
  • Copper
  • Cobalt
  • Platinum
  • Palladium
  • Gold
Mining Method
  • Slot-Slash
  • Mechanized Cut & Fill
  • Transverse stoping
  • Longitudinal stoping
Backfill type ... Lock
Production Start... Lock
SnapshotTotten mine is a part of Vale integrated Sudbury (Ontario) Operations which also includes:
- underground mines (Copper Cliff, Creighton, Garson and Totten mines),
- processing and refining facilities (Clarabelle Mill, Copper Cliff Smelter and Nickel Refinery, Port Colborne refining complex),
- supported by the Clydach Refinery in Wales,
- non-operating mines, and
- non-producing properties.

Owners

SourceSource
CompanyInterestOwnership
Manara Minerals Investment Co. 10 % Indirect
Vale S.A. 90 % Indirect
Vale Canada Ltd. (operator) 100 % Direct
The Totten mine (part of Sudbury Operations) is owned and operated by Vale Canada Limited (wholly-owned subsidiary of Vale Base Metals Ltd., the holding entity of Vale’s Energy Transition Metals business).

On April 30, 2024, Vale S.A. announced the completion of Vale Base Metals Ltd.(“VBM”) sale to Manara Minerals, under which Manara Minerals will acquire 10% of VBM.

Terms of agreement:

On 27 July, 2023, Vale S.A. signed a binding agreement with Manara Minerals, under which Manara Minerals will invest in Vale Base Metals Ltd. at an implied enterprise value of US$ 26.0 billion.

Concurrently, Vale and investment firm Engine No. 1 entered into a binding agreement pursuant to which Engine No. 1 will make an equity investment in VBM under the same economic terms.

The total consideration to be paid to VBM under both agreements is US$ 3.4 billion, for a 13% equity interest. Manara Minerals will own 10% of VBM, while Engine No. 1 will hold a 3% stake.

Contractors

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SourceSource

Deposit type

  • Magmatic

Summary:

The Totten deposit is hosted within the Worthington Offset Dyke which extends 12 km south from the SIC. The dyke attains a thickness of 45 m in the Totten Mine area, strikes approximately 045°, and has steep variable dips.

Metasedimentary rocks and the Nipissing meta-gabbro sill underlie the Totten Mine area. The sill is 365 m thick, trends east–west and dips at approximately 65° to the southeast. The Worthington Offset cuts both the metasedimentary rocks and the gabbro sill. Late quartz diabase and olivine diabase dykes crosscut all lithologies.

The contact between meta-gabbro and Worthington Offset Dyke is characterized by a meta-gabbro breccia with fragments up to 10 m diameter. Locally the meta-gabbro is invaded by an inclusion quartz diorite stockwork and mineralized stringers. These breccia and stockwork features are not developed in metasedimentary rocks.

Two quartz diabase dykes occur in the immediate vicinity of the Totten Mine and bound the majority of the high-grade mineralization hosted in the Totten Main orebody. The quartz diabase dykes are steeply dipping and vary in thickness from <3–10 m. Quartz diabase dykes are generally fractured especially along the contacts resulting in local poor ground conditions. Several olivine diabase dykes of variable width occur to the north of the Totten Main orebody.

STRUCTURE
The Worthington Offset has been displaced by two major faults. The Creighton fault strikes east-west, is vertical to steeply dipping to the north, and dextrally displaces the Worthington Offset Dyke by approximately 1 km. The Murray fault also strikes east–west, is vertically dipping and dextrally displaces the Worthington Offset by approximately 1 km.

Between the Creighton and Murray faults the local rock mass has been subjected to northwest-southeast fracturing and weak faulting. Minor displacement occurred locally on some of the larger fractures.

MINERALIZATION
Copper–nickel–PGE–gold sulphides are hosted within an inclusion quartz diorite phase of the Worthington Offset. This sulphide zone consists of variable thicknesses of massive and semimassive copper–nickel-bearing sulphides surrounded by a disseminated and blebby sulphide halo.

The massive sulphide varies in true thickness from 2–15 m and is dominantly pyrrhotite and pentlandite. The massive sulphide thins and splays into 2.5 cm to 1 m thick copper-rich stringer zones within the disseminated sulphide halo. Semi-massive sulphides are also typically pyrrhotite and pentlandite rich, but are spatially associated with chalcopyrite-rich patches. In areas where large meta-gabbro inclusions are present, metal grades tended to be higher than in portions of the dyke containing only amphibolite inclusions.

Thick, localized accumulations of ore are situated to the north and south of the quartz diabase dykes. Nickel and copper mineralization become progressively higher grade with depth and towards the core of the mineralization.

PGE–gold minerals are spatially associated with more copper-rich sulphides. Platinum and palladium grades increase with depth but the gold grade does not. The highest PGE–gold grades are concentrated at depth around a portion of the southernmost quartz diabase dyke.

Mineral zone boundaries are locally characterized by arsenic-bearing minerals such as niccolite and gersdorffite. Niccolite stringers are also encountered in the quartz diabase dyke and sometimes in quartz diorite and inclusion quartz diorite proximal to the Worthington Offset.

Reserves

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Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

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Processing

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Production

CommodityUnits2023202220212020
Nickel lbs  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
Copper lbs  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe

Operational metrics

Metrics202320222021202020192018201720162015
Ore tonnes mined  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe669 kt710 kt710 kt671 kt528 kt

Production Costs

Commodity production costs have not been reported.

Heavy Mobile Equipment

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Personnel

Mine Management

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Aerial view:

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