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BY DERWIN GOWAN
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL

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BELLEDUNE - The livelihood of more than 800 people will disappear when Brunswick Mine No. 12 runs out of ore, which the Swiss owner Xstrata Zinc Canada says will happen in 2010.

Losing the mine will put another 450 jobs at risk at Xstrata's Brunswick Smelter in Belledune, which has relied on Brunswick Mines since the 1960s.

Recycled lead from old batteries and electronic devices, along with more recent mine openings, could provide feedstock after 2010, said smelter general manager Peter Hancock in an interview with the Telegraph-Journal last Tuesday.

If the company runs an efficient operation, and the world economy co-operates, the smelter might survive the loss of Brunswick No. 12, Hancock said. "The honest answer is, we haven't made any decision."

Today, recycled lead provides 51 per cent of the feedstock for the smelter, which processes 800 metric tonnes per day in total.

Besides the lead in the old batteries, Xstrata recycles the plastic casings and the acid.

The company recovers lead from the screens of old computers and televisions. It melts the remaining glass, essentially sand, into slag for use in the smelting process. In the past it had to ship in sand.

Concentrate from the Brunswick Mine and Blue Note Mining's Caribou Mine provide the other 49 per cent of the material to operate the smelter year-round — something not guaranteed without the contribution from Brunswick Mine.

Further, the Caribou and nearby Restigouche mines would not justify a lead smelter on their own, Blue Note Mining's chief operating officer John Martin said this week.

If Slam Exploration began production at its Nash Creek deposit, if Xstrata finds offshore miners willing to ship concentrate to Belledune, or if it finds more scrap lead and the world price for the metal improves, if the value of the Canadian dollar drops "the smelter could survive without the Brunswick Mine.

"We haven't made any decision because we're doing a bunch of stuff here at the smelter to put ourselves in a competitive position when that happens," said Hancock, referring to the mine shutdown.

"It used to be that almost all of our feed came from the Brunswick Mine," he said. "In the first half of this year, over 50 per cent of what we treated wasn't even from a mine. It was recycled feed from a whole bunch of different sources."

In developed countries well above 80 per cent of lead comes from recycling, he said. Most North American lead smelters handle only old batteries, he said.

Only three "primary smelters" remain on the continent - in Missiouri, British Columbia and Belledune. Of these three, only Belledune has overcome the technical problems of mixing mine concentrate and recycled metal.

Besides lead, the smelter at Belledune recovers silver, gold and smaller amounts of other precious metals.

Many developing countries have yet to develop the technology to smelt recycled lead. Environmental laws in many countries, including China, forbid importing old batteries and electronic devices, making it easier for Xstrata to compete for the supply of this material in North America, Hancock said.

A demand in China for lead acid batteries, plus laws against importing scrap lead, could work in Belledune's favour, Hancock said.