May 17, 2012
OMA member North American Palladium’s Lac des Iles Mine has won the Ontario Regional John Ryan Safety Trophy for metal mines for the 2011 calendar year -- This is the first time the Lac des Iles mine, which is located about 160 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, has achieved this honour symbolizing excellence in safety performance. The regional trophy was first presented in 1942 as part of the John T. Ryan national safety recognition program. . . .
Brad Corrigan, General Manager of the Lac des Iles Mine, will accept the award at a ceremony to recognize the outstanding safety record of all employees at this mine site. The OMA has provided administrative, secretarial and scorekeeping services for the John T. Ryan Safety Trophies competition for 71 years, since its inception in 1941.
Presentations of the national Ryan safety trophies were made recently at the Canadian Institute of Mining’s 114th annual conference, which was held in Edmonton. Xstrata Zinc’s Brunswick Mine won the Canada Trophy in the metal mine category, CGC Little Narrows Mine in the select mine category and Sherritt Coal’s Paintearth Mine in the coal category. Little Narrows and Paintearth mines had 0.0 reportable injury rates.
The regional Ryan trophy metal mine winners along with the Lac des Iles Mine in Ontario were Xstrata Nickel’s Raglan Mine (Quebec and East) and Cameco’s McArthur River Mine (Prairies Northwest Territories and Nunavut). Select mine regional winners were Rio Tinto IOC in the East and Suncor Millennium Mine in the West.
“All the employees at these operations deserve praise from the entire industry for building strong safety cultures,” said Gord Winkel, Chairman of the John T. Ryan Safety Trophy Committee. The Ryan Trophy Safety competition began in 1941 when the Mine Safety Appliances Company of Canada -- now MSA Canada Inc. -- donated a trophy to encourage the safe production of minerals as part of Canada’s wartime effort. Since then, the competition expanded to include a coal trophy in 1942 and a select mine trophy in 1970. These much-treasured trophies are symbols of the premier safety competition in mining.
The Chairman of the John T. Ryan National Safety Trophies Committee is Gord Winkel, Industrial Professor in the Engineering Safety and Risk Management Program in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Alberta. MSA Canada is the sponsor of the Ryan Trophies competition.
North American Palladium’s Lac des Iles Mine also received recognition recently for success on the exploration front. It won the Bernie Schneiders Discovery of the Year Award for 2011 for identifying and expanding underground zones of mineralization at the property. This honour was presented on behalf of the Northwestern Ontario Prospectors Association to John Corkery, Lac des Iles Director of Exploration.
North American Palladium is a precious metals producer that has been operating its flagship Lac des Iles mine since 1993. It is one of only two primary producers of palladium in the world and it is currently undergoing a major expansion. The company also operates the Vezza gold mine located in the Abitibi region of Quebec.
