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[developing article]

When I started in the Vancouver office of Hatch Mott MacDonald, we were supporting the team working on the Mary River Project for Baffinlind Iron Mines. A project only feasible with climate change. A fascinating project. Imagine playing Outpost 2 in real life, without needing to leave Earth, fight off aliens or fight of rebels.

The project team relied on us for creating earthworks models and road geometry to support budgeting for feasibility design.

Amazingly enough, the project team started out just evaluating another firm's feasibility design. Baffinland enlisted us to assemble a revised design and cost estimate after we showed that the feasibility design Baffinland had was inappropriate for Arctic conditions. It missed a bunch of design constraints you need in sub-zero environments. How far would you walk if you couldn't see anything in a blizzard? Also, one infrastructure component we needed in our design: utilidors.

The design we worked on involved an ambitious set of facilities, too:

This would only work when Baffinland finished building some new ships suited to the Arctic waters and capable of carrying the ore quantities in the design. Export under the ambitious plan demands that the ocean in Steensby Inlet remains ice-free for enough time for ships to arrive, load and leave.

We designed platforms for the many parts of the mining plant, and the facilities Baffinland would need at two nearby port sites as well as haul roads. Our colleagues in Aviation at Vancouver designed earthworks for aerodromes at each site.

Ultimately, Baffinland needed to pause design efforts and our team began work on other projects. Before winding down, we had the opportunity to develop site earthworks concepts for two port sites and the mine site itself. We developed earthworks models working with the logistics team to accommodate roll-on roll-off equipment and Mammoett transport platforms.

For the southern port, which Baffinland hoped to use for exporting high-grade iron ore, we designed earthworks for scenarios that felt very much like frontier landings on alien soil. The barge can do "X", now what do we need to build so that we can start building the rest?

Baffinland shelved the ambitious project vision we designed in favour of long term ore extraction with gradual improvements to the mine and ports.


Mary River Project, Baffinland Iron Mines (Mary River, Nunavut) Hatch Ltd, Mining --- Collaborated with engineering, logistics and construction specialists (large team) to develop a revised (optimized) project definition and revised feasibility capital cost estimate for $5 billion, 18 Mt/a, iron ore mining project at an arctic site. The project includes three remote industrial plant sites (Mary River mine, Steensby export port, Milne construction delivery port) with camps and aerodromes, a 100 km road, and a 149 km railway Responsibilities included checking and assembling earthworks quantities from optimized site design for project cost estimate with 15% accuracy; coordinating with other design groups to complete an earthworks optimization study; assembling finalized preliminary earthworks site drawings; developing preliminary arrangements for bolt-together railway underpasses; developing preliminary general arrangements for effluent ponds and sediment traps; and developing road design criteria