{"id":1178326,"date":"2020-04-15T13:33:23","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T18:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1020535"},"modified":"2020-04-15T13:33:23","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T18:33:23","slug":"quebecs-renard-mine-stays-on-care-and-maintenance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1178326","title":{"rendered":"Quebec\u2019s Renard mine stays on care and maintenance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Quebec\u2019s first and only diamond mine will remain on care and maintenance, even though the&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"province has given the go-ahead to restart mines&nbsp;as of Apr. 15 (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/canadian-malartic-westwood-mines-resuming-operations-in-quebec\/\" >province has given the go-ahead to restart mines&nbsp;as of Apr. 15<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center d-xs-block d-sm-block d-md-none'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Stornoway Diamond\u00a0says the decision is due to depressed market prices for diamonds stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p> Stornoway Diamond\u00a0says the decision is due to depressed market prices for diamonds <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The decision affects some 540 people at the Renard mine, 350 km north of Chibougamau, in the James Bay region of north-central Quebec. <\/p>\n<p>A team of 50 workers will remain onsite during care and maintenance.<\/p>\n<p>Stornoway was acquired by a group of its creditors, including&nbsp;Osisko Gold Royalties,&nbsp;and delisted last year after it failed to achieve free cash flow and ran out of working capital.<\/p>\n<p>The mine continued to operate, however, until March 24, when the Quebec government suspending mining as a non-essential service due to the covid-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n<p>This week, the province added mining operations to the list of essential businesses that are allowed to operate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe unprecedented global events we are experiencing have unfortunately led to the board of directors to take this difficult decision impacting our employees and a number of our valued stakeholders,\u201d said Stornoway president and CEO Patrick Godin in a release. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe thank all of them for their ongoing support throughout the Renard history. We will continue to monitor the market conditions for improvements, which would allow for a restart of mining activities. The diamond market has proven over time to be resilient and prices have recovered following economic downturns.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While diamond prices started to pick up in early 2020 after a difficult 2019, the covid-19 pandemic and the responding virtual global economic shutdown have decimated the diamond sector.<\/p>\n<p>Not only have diamond prices declined, but international travel bans have shut down sales of rough diamonds, depriving miners of revenue.<\/p>\n<p><em>(This article first appeared in the&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.canadianminingjournal.com\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Canadian Mining<br \/>\nJournal<\/em><\/a><em>)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stornoway Diamond says the decision is due to depressed market prices for diamonds, stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[369,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1178326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1178327,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178326\/revisions\/1178327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1178326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1178326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1178326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}