The Challenges

Diavik Diamond mine is a remote location located 300 km northeast of Yellowknife, NT and this job required some innovative logistics to make it work. The actual wind turbines themselves are massive with the blades measuring 35 meters long and the body 64 meters high for a total hight when installed of over 100 meters.

The project required over 190 tonnes of rebar to be placed and over 1300 cubic meters of concrete placed and set. The arctic winter leading up to the project has been extremely mild and could provide challenges regarding load capacity and duration of the winter roads that make the mine accessible for supply shipments.

How We Helped

Det’on Cho Nahanni has worked closely with the general contractor and the mine to ensure supplies are in place and work can continue on schedule. An 18 person crew will be dedicated to the project. Det’on Cho Nahanni also purchased new equipment including five cement trucks and a concrete pump truck to ensure adequate resources were available to complete the project on schedule and on budget.

A contractor from Germany is heading up the wind turbine construction on site. Nahanni will provide operator/equipment support as well as occupational health and safety expertise to the contractor over the course of the project.

The Challenges

The Diavik mine site is 300 kilometres north of Yellowknife so workers, supplies, and equipment must be shipped in during the winter road season or flown in to meet job demands. On this particular project logistics surrounding scheduling proved challenging because of the nature of working on site with multiple other contractors. There were also constraints around equipment availability and an aggressive deadline for project completion.

How We Helped

Det’on Cho Nahanni won this project on a lump sum competitive bid and worked hard to complete this project on time and on budget. Our team was able to deliver this project ahead of schedule with zero incidents, accidents, or lost time. This fresh air raise project consisted of the placement of all civil requirements of the ventilation infrastructure required to allow for our client, Rio Tinto, to proceed with their planned phasing of their underground operations.

The Challenges

The requirement to meet the short shipping season of the high arctic demanded extremely fast-track design and fabrication. The earliest possible commitment to deliver for offloading at Resolute was early September, with winter weather commencing in early October. This dictated an extremely tight deadline and left our crews approximately 4 weeks to “get inside” once we had our modules on the beach. We were blessed with a better than expected delivery date of August 24th, and we were well in control of our environment by the time the severe weather was upon us.
The logistical challenges of moving men and material in the high arctic cannot be understated. Extremely detailed front-end planning is required to mitigate the cost of moving freight by air, as is the efficient planning and coordination of labor and sub-trades.

How We Helped

Coordinating logistics in the high arctic is both an art and a science. Ensuring all modules are ready to ship, all shipping partners are coordinated and all trades are on track to complete each piece and ensuring a high quality end product are complicated. We worked with all our partners to ensure this happened.

Design and engineering were completed between December 2009 and April 2010 followed by module fabrication in April through July. The modules were all built in Matane, Quebec, the best port option with a shipping route and the logistical requirements needed for a project of this scale. Before the modules left for Resolute, NU, they were assembled to ensure fitment and quality. Once it was clear that everything was built to the standard we strive for all modular units were disassembled and shipped from Matane to Nunavut. These units were shipped over 4,000 kilometres by sea.

Once the units arrived in Nunavut after making the trip from Quebec our crews used their expertise and arctic construction knowledge to re-assemble the complex, install and commission the mechanical and electrical systems and turn the project over to the client by February 2011..

The Challenges

The Ekati Diamond Mine is extremely remote and the Misery Camp at the mine is located another 28 kilometres further away from the main Ekati camp infrastructure. This required Det’on Cho Nahanni to bus crews from the main camp to the Misery site each day. It also meant that concrete operations needed to be well coordinated because the batch plant is located at the main camp. The coordination of crews, equipment, and concrete and supplies was further complicated by the fact that communications at the Misery site were not in place when the contract began

A large amount of the work on the Misery project was undertaken outside due to the condensed 10 month completion schedule of the project. Det’on Cho Nahanni crews worked in arctic conditions that included snow, ice and temperatures as low as -60 degrees Celsius.

A high percentage of the crew on this project were new to the Ekati mine site and required extensive safety training which required additional resources to ensure it was completed to the high standard Det’on Cho Nahanni puts on their safety program.

As with most of Det’on Cho Nahanni’s projects the site was extremely remote with limited access by the client.

How We Helped

Det’on Cho Nahanni ensured production time that was lost meeting logistical challenges like crew and equipment transport didn’t impact the project schedule by working a day and night shift. In order to coordinate project resources in the most timely way Det’on Cho Nahanni worked to get set up with phone and internet communications on site quickly.

The cold weather, while always a challenge in the North’s arctic, was a hurdle the Det’on Cho Nahanni crews took in stride. As is the Det’on Cho Nahanni way the entire team on site prepared for the weather well and continued working through harsh conditions to meet project responsibilities.

Safety training costs were high but no expense is spared when it comes to ensuring crews are up to speed on the latest safety regulations and training. All new crew members were put through Nahanni’s rigourous safety training program and safe practices were reinforced throughout the project. This strategy has allowed the Det’on Cho Nahanni crews to reach 80,000 man hours without lost time to injuries.

To ensure our clients and partners were confident in the work that was being completed Det’on Cho Nahanni continued to foster a good working relationship and high level of trust with the client through a policy of record keeping and good reporting systems. This allowed for reduced costs related to client site visits.