Ferry County mine to close

One of Ferry County’s largest employers will lay off 70 workers in November as it shuts down its K2 gold mine near Curlew.

Kinross Gold Corp., based in Toronto, said Friday the layoffs result from depleted ore at the mine, about 20 miles from Republic.

Most of the layoffs will be at the K2 mine, although some jobs also will be cut at Kinross’s Kettle River mill in Republic, said company spokesman Christopher Hill. The exact number at each site have yet not been announced, said Robert Taylor, vice president and general manager for the Kettle River mill. The jobs pay about $54,000 a year.

While Kinross is cutting 70 jobs, about 45 jobs at the mine and mill will be kept in place. Those will be for operating the mine in “care and maintenance” mode and to perform management and support services at the mill, said Hill.

Kinross has operated the mine since acquiring it from Echo Bay in January 2003. Hill said gold reserves in the K2 are nearing depletion, a circumstance the company anticipated in late 2004.

The miners losing their jobs have the option of going back to work for Kinross once the company completes the purchase of the not-yet-operating Buckhorn Mountain mine from Denver-based Crown Resources Corp., said Hill.

But Kinross officials have not said when that purchase will be completed or when the mine might open. Kinross must restate financial statements going back to 2003 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Once those financial statements are approved, the company will then submit the purchase agreement to Crown Resources shareholders.

Located 25 miles away, near Chesaw in neighboring Okanogan County, the Buckhorn Mountain mine could add about 90 or 100 mining jobs. The mining jobs also are expected to pay around $54,000 per year. Those jobs would be critical in Ferry County, which struggles with high unemployment, area officials have said. Ferry County’s unemployment rate was 7.8 percent in August, the latest month available, compared with 5.8 percent in Spokane County.

Kinross has a number of gold mines around the world but its Ferry County operation may well be the only significant, active gold mine in Washington state, said Clyde Gillespie, the Buckhorn Mountain project manager.

The K2 mine has been running around-the-clock shifts seven days a week for most of the past 13 years, he said. It was opened in 1992 by previous owner, Echo Bay.

The Republic mill has been running 24-hour shifts four days a week, added Gillespie. It’s been handling about 1,700 tons of ore daily.

Kinross officials have said they hope to extract roughly 1 million ounces of gold over the Buckhorn mine’s seven-year life, worth about $475 million at current gold prices.

“Once we get that mine open, we hope to offer those good-paying jobs for about eight years,” said Taylor, the mill’s general manager.