AMI (Athabasca Minerals Inc) has opened its Coffey Lake Public Pit site in Alberta and made its first deliveries of aggregates only a year after getting the official go-ahead.
According to AMI chief executive officer Robert Beekhuizen: “This is a remarkable accomplishment in today’s regulatory environment.”
As ARI has reported in recent months, the AMI team been busy putting through applications, obtaining approvals, and clearing and constructing the Coffey Lake site in the past 12 months.
Beekhuizen is proud to be “commencing operations only one year after winning the government contract.
“Furthermore, he adds, “to obtain in parallel commercial approval for the ‘True North Staging Hub’ which supports Coffey Lake, and in the future AMI’s Richardson Quarry Project 30 km north, speaks to the Corporation’s strategic foresight for value-creation.”
This is a 30 hectare (72 acre) commercial lease, which serves as AMI’s “True North Staging Hub” for “crushing and stockpiling aggregates near oilsands industrial operations and associated infrastructure projects.”
AMI sees Coffey as part of its plan to make “further strategic in-roads to access and penetrate the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), arguably Canada’s largest regional market for aggregates.”
Looking at the business as a whole, Beekhuizen says: “Although we are equally disappointed with a decline in share price in the last five months, as markets have shifted, AMI’s intrinsic value by comparison has improved steadily over the past two years from strategic re-positioning along with demonstrable accomplishments.
“The company is now poised, like never before, to realize exciting opportunities in each of its subsidiaries: AMI Aggregates, AMI Silica, and AMI RockChain.”
The Coffey Lake contract has a 15-year scope, says AMI. “Quality aggregates will be produced to satisfy a region with consistently high demand volumes from large-scale industrial oilsands operators with ongoing road maintenance, infrastructure and sustaining capital projects.”
Coffey Lake is located on 335 hectares (800 acres) of land, 90km from the city of Fort McMurray and 45km from Fort McKay. For more information about Coffey Lake, go to www.coffeylakepit.ca
