Economic powerhouse in Northwest Alaska: the Red Dog Mine.

• Author: Gudde, Levi

Few Alaskans have any real concept of the enormous contribution to the state's economy - and to that of Northwest Alaska in particular - made by NANA Regional Corp. and Cominco Alaska, Inc.'s Red Dog Mine. For that matter, because of its remote location, and the fact that the people at the mine have quietly gone about their business without much fanfare for almost a decade, most Alaskans have no clear picture or real understanding of the mine's size and complexity.

The complete Red Dog Mine operation consists of three distinct, yet inter-related parts: the mine site operation - where the ore is actually mined and processed, a road for getting the concentrates from the mine to the port, and the port site operation - where the concentrates are stored and from which they are shipped to world markets. (See "Transportation-Intensive" p. 25)

At the mine site, the shale-hosted, high-grade, zinc-lead-silver ore is extracted from an open pit using two bulldozers, two front-end loaders and four 85-ton haulage trucks. The mined ore is first processed through a modular crushing plant located at the exit from the pit. Next, it is hauled less than a mile to other fully computerized processing equipment including, SAG, ball and tower mills.

A concentrate-storage facility, with the capacity to warehouse three weeks worth of the mine's production capacity, resides on the mine site. The facility prevents the possibility of a production halt due to caribou migration or severe weather - Red Dog's two major road-transportation barriers.

In addition, Red Dog has a modern personal accommodations complex (PAC) consisting of 375 rooms to house employees. Dining and recreation facilities are also within the complex. Mining crews usually work two 10-hour shifts a day, 7 days per week, on a rotation schedule of four weeks on, two weeks off.

Connecting the two sites is a 52-mile long road called The Delong Mountain Regional Transportation System. It was originally constructed with a $160 million loan from the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, and is being repaid by Cominco with a 6.5 percent return on investment for the state. The road was built over permafrost using a geotextile-mat base and at least five feet of crushed rock on top.

Concentrates are moved from the mine to the port under a contract with Arrow Transportation International, Inc., using specially designed heavy-haul 75-ton ore trucks. At the port, the concentrates get stored in two huge...