BHP Ltd. plans to start recruiting people in 2023 to operate the group’s Jansen potash mine in Saskatchewan, Canada, 140 kilometers east of Saskatoon, where first production is targeted in calendar 2026.
Canada’s Financial Post, citing BHP’s President of Minerals for the Americas Ragnar Udd, reported that the group plans to recruit roughly 600 people who will operate the mine, with aspirations to draw a large proportion of its workforce from the local community. BHP also aspires for gender balance and a representative indigenous workforce of about 20% as well.
This year, Jansen’s workforce will peak, with as many as 2,500 people on site.
BHP already has completed two 1,000-meter deep mine shafts (GM Nov. 4,2022)and by the end of 2023 hopes to have poured concrete foundations for the processing mill and other processing and storage facilities, and to have started to erect steel structures, according to the report.
In its initial stage, when fully ramped-up, Jansen “Stage 1” is expected to produce 4.35 million mt/y of potassium chloride, and has the potential for the addition of three subsequent expansion phases to take the mine to an envisioned eventual production capacity of between 16-17 million mt of potash a year. BHP already has accelerated the Jansen “Stage 2” study, which could add another 4 million mt/y (GM Oct. 21, 2022).