Here is a review of key infrastructure items:
1 - Port - Deep Water Port
2 - Power - Power required for project
3 - Road - this article
4 - People - future article
This article will talk specifically about the road.
It is absolutely a key infrastructure point to Chidliak and there are a few options that are available.
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Update (August 2016)
The recent PEA (preliminary economic assessment) completed a trade off versus a seasonal ice road and an all weather road. The outcome was the selection of an all weather road. The synergies from using an all weather road will be more enhanced as more studies and added tonnages get brought into the project.
Here is a recent video of the topography 200 km's north of Chidliak.
The topography in and around Chidliak should be relatively similar.
The video clearly shows potholes of water scattered within the land and relatively flat, yet bumpy land. As you move to the fjords closer to the coast, the bumps get bigger and rockier and the potholes get a bit bigger and deeper.
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Update (August 2016)
The recent PEA (preliminary economic assessment) completed a trade off versus a seasonal ice road and an all weather road. The outcome was the selection of an all weather road. The synergies from using an all weather road will be more enhanced as more studies and added tonnages get brought into the project.
Here is a recent video of the topography 200 km's north of Chidliak.
The topography in and around Chidliak should be relatively similar.
The video clearly shows potholes of water scattered within the land and relatively flat, yet bumpy land. As you move to the fjords closer to the coast, the bumps get bigger and rockier and the potholes get a bit bigger and deeper.
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In the two bulk samples leading up to today, there has been a need to ship in some heavy equipment and ship out bulk sample tonnage. In the winter of 2012/13 and 2014/15 there was a groomed track put in between Iqaluit and Chidliak. The last part of 2014/15 did not work out so well as the snowfall was abysmal and the transportation of the bulk sample tonnage was not able to utilize that track any more. It was all sent by very expensive plane/helicopter trips.
The main concept here is to determine if a seasonal road (ie.- Ice road) is the best for the project or an all-season road with bridges/culverts is the better of the two options. The latter will be more expensive and flexible and the former will have an annual cost to it and also be very inflexible for timeline to transport items and also be weather dependent (no guarantees on any given year).
First question is whether there is a road from Iqaluit toward Chidliak to begin with.
The answer to that is a very small road called the 'road to nowhere'.
First question is whether there is a road from Iqaluit toward Chidliak to begin with.
The answer to that is a very small road called the 'road to nowhere'.
This road to no where may very well have a destination of Chidliak.
The length of the current road is about 7.5 km's and does have one bridge near the end of the road.
Here is a nice view of the bridge. You will notice how they built up the embankment on each side of the river and basically laid out a flat structure across it.
Here is great blog with photos along this road -- Road to no where trip
One of those photos has very relevant information.
This is the photo here:
Of relevance is the sign that indicates the maximum load of 11 tonnes that can go over this specific bridge.
What is the distance between Iqaluit and Chidliak?
As the crow flies, the distance is about 120 km's.
With the groomed trails for the bulk samples, they took around 160 km's on a best path basis.
Looking at the CH-6 path (PDF - PAGE 9) you can clearly see that they actually went over a large body of water. This might be the case of being a lot easier to groom over the water/ice than land.
So, the actual ice road or all season road for the mine will probably be between these 2 figures. 150 km's might be a good approximation.
The land is rolling (sea level to 760 metres above sea level) and there are few water features throughout, so the final design will have to look at the detailed topography and water features to determine the best path.
One huge benefit to make an all season road is the ease of transport of your workforce to and from Iqaluit.
It would be a lot cheaper to send the labour in and out every 2 weeks via ground transportation versus costly airplane trips.
Bridges? If you want to use this road to for transporting heavy equimpment to and from site, oil and fuel supplies, etc...then you want a certain load and a 11 tonne bridge probably is not going to cut it.
The two options that are clearly defined are:
1 - Ice road - Works only during winter. Needs grooming and maintenance to start it up. It can take very large loads.
2 - All Season road - Built a 1 way all season road with several of expensive bridges and not so expensive culverts. This will need to include a few passing areas as a minimum.
There is a third option that is basically a combination of the two.
3 - All season road that is built with light weight and cost friendly bridges (11 tonne maximum). This can be used all year round to transport light loads - eg. Labour, small equipment, etc. During the winter, at each bridge, the road has a diversion path to the river/stream and an ice access way can be created for heavy loads. This way you get light loads year round and heavy loads during the winter months.
The question on the third option is whether the cost difference between a light load bridge and a heavy load bridge is that different. I suspect there is a difference in cost/steel/structure and this hybrid option might be a capital friendly way to access a year round option. Is this a viable option or just a concept only. That 11 tonne sign is what brought this concept into the picture.
Looking further into the project....a DMS (dense media separation unit) that produces a concentrate that is 1/100th the size of the original material may give an option to send this concentrate out of Chidliak on a regular basis over this light load bridge concept and onto an existing x-ray diamond recovery set up (SRC or even Renard).
Here is a great website talking about the ice road to the existing NWT diamond mines -- iceroad
The length of the current road is about 7.5 km's and does have one bridge near the end of the road.
Here is a nice view of the bridge. You will notice how they built up the embankment on each side of the river and basically laid out a flat structure across it.
Here is great blog with photos along this road -- Road to no where trip
One of those photos has very relevant information.
This is the photo here:
Of relevance is the sign that indicates the maximum load of 11 tonnes that can go over this specific bridge.
What is the distance between Iqaluit and Chidliak?
As the crow flies, the distance is about 120 km's.
With the groomed trails for the bulk samples, they took around 160 km's on a best path basis.
Looking at the CH-6 path (PDF - PAGE 9) you can clearly see that they actually went over a large body of water. This might be the case of being a lot easier to groom over the water/ice than land.
So, the actual ice road or all season road for the mine will probably be between these 2 figures. 150 km's might be a good approximation.
The land is rolling (sea level to 760 metres above sea level) and there are few water features throughout, so the final design will have to look at the detailed topography and water features to determine the best path.
One huge benefit to make an all season road is the ease of transport of your workforce to and from Iqaluit.
It would be a lot cheaper to send the labour in and out every 2 weeks via ground transportation versus costly airplane trips.
Bridges? If you want to use this road to for transporting heavy equimpment to and from site, oil and fuel supplies, etc...then you want a certain load and a 11 tonne bridge probably is not going to cut it.
The two options that are clearly defined are:
1 - Ice road - Works only during winter. Needs grooming and maintenance to start it up. It can take very large loads.
2 - All Season road - Built a 1 way all season road with several of expensive bridges and not so expensive culverts. This will need to include a few passing areas as a minimum.
There is a third option that is basically a combination of the two.
3 - All season road that is built with light weight and cost friendly bridges (11 tonne maximum). This can be used all year round to transport light loads - eg. Labour, small equipment, etc. During the winter, at each bridge, the road has a diversion path to the river/stream and an ice access way can be created for heavy loads. This way you get light loads year round and heavy loads during the winter months.
The question on the third option is whether the cost difference between a light load bridge and a heavy load bridge is that different. I suspect there is a difference in cost/steel/structure and this hybrid option might be a capital friendly way to access a year round option. Is this a viable option or just a concept only. That 11 tonne sign is what brought this concept into the picture.
Looking further into the project....a DMS (dense media separation unit) that produces a concentrate that is 1/100th the size of the original material may give an option to send this concentrate out of Chidliak on a regular basis over this light load bridge concept and onto an existing x-ray diamond recovery set up (SRC or even Renard).
Here is a great website talking about the ice road to the existing NWT diamond mines -- iceroad
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