Rambler Metals and Mining has reopened the Ming copper/gold mine in Newfoundland with the help of a new equipment fleet from Atlas Copco. Ming had previously closed in 1982 due to low copper prices and the inability to pursue the ore body further due to boundary limitations. Now the mine, located on Newfoundland’s Baie Vert peninsula is in full production again. Two properties covering more than 1,600 ha had to be consolidated before pursuing Ming. They were both purchased by Altius Minerals in 2001 to become one property. Rambler Metals and Mining was founded in March of 2005 to develop and operate the mine. A final key factor to fall in place was production support.

The mine purchased its new drill rigs, LHDs and underground trucks from Atlas Copco. Atlas Copco has opened a warehouse and service center in Pasadena, just a two-hour drive from Baie Verte, to provide close technical support and readily available parts and supplies to the mine. The six-year operation will target a 2.1 Mt orebody with a copper reserve rated at 3.5 to 4%. Rambler will initially drill past a substantial gold resource that has a history of yielding ore as high as 5.8 g/t Au. The plan is to keep the copper to gold mining ratio to about 60:40. The mine will extract 630 t/d of ore to produce 20,000 t/y of processed copper concentrate grading at 29%. Operators have reported favorably on the new Atlas Copco MT42 mine trucks on the site. They run 40 t payloads up an unusually steep ramp of 18-20° grade at up to 8 km/h.

The 60 m range of the radio controlled Scooptram LHDs form the core of the fleet and can begin mucking immediately after a production blast. Also, despite advances not being limited by mine conditions, which generally involve competent rock, the company installs 4 m connectible Atlas Copco Swellex botls for roof support where personnel are going to be working, especially at intersections.