Underground coal mine in Donkin is up for sale
Mine is idle as a skeleton crew maintains ventilation and flood controls
The troubled underground coal mine in Donkin, Cape Breton, is for sale, according to a news release from a Nova Scotia company with ties to the mine.
Morien Resources, a publicly traded company that gets royalties from the sale of Donkin coal, announced the sale process Thursday.
The mine is run by Kameron Collieries, which is owned by the U.S.-based Cline Group.
The mine shut down two years ago after rock from the roof fell twice in one week, once while miners were working in the underground slopes that run several kilometres out under the Atlantic Ocean.
No one was injured, but the provincial government kept the mine closed for several months, demanding increased safety measures and an independent report.
It was allowed to reopen more than a year ago, but is idle today, with a skeleton crew maintaining ventilation and flood controls.
History of roof falls
According to the provincial Labour Department, the mine has experienced 32 roof falls of more than three tonnes since Kameron Collieries started production in 2017.
It suffered a smaller incident one week before the large roof fall in July 2023, in the same part of the tunnel, but it was cleaned up quickly and mining restarted two days later.
In the latest release, Morien Resources said the sale of the mine is in the early stages and is being handled by U.S. company Perella Weinberg Partners.
The company said the mine owner has not entered into a binding sales agreement.
Morien Resources said its royalty, which includes up to four per cent of coal sales at peak production, is binding and will continue under any new owner.
According to the company's annual reports, by 2023 it had earned about $3.2 million in royalties since the mine opened in 2017.
That's based on two per cent of sales, because the mine has never reached full production.
At that rate, Kameron Collieries had sold about $159 million in Donkin coal.
Morien Resources said the owner had poured more than $300 million into developing the mine, meaning it has yet to break even on its investment.
Provincial royalties
Nova Scotia's Department of Natural Resources also gets a royalty, but its payment is a flat fee of $1.15 per tonne.
The province said in 2023 it had received $985,000 in royalties from the Donkin mine, which works out to about 856,500 tonnes of coal.
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