Golden Valley Electric Association is set to begin supplying power to the Pogo gold mine now under construction northeast of Delta, in eastern Interior Alaska.
A 50-mile electric transmission line built to the mine by Teck Pogo Inc., the mine developer, was scheduled to go into service Feb. 10, according to GVEA spokeswoman Cathy Gappert.
It's another milestone for the $287 million Pogo mine, now mid-way through a two-year construction program. Construction is scheduled to be completed late this year or in early 2006.
Electricity supplied by the Interior Alaska electric utility will replace power supplied by diesel generators at the mine, although the on-site plants will be kept on standby.
When the mine begins production in it will require 10 to 11 megawatts of power, Teck Pogo spokesman Karl Hanneman told a state legislative committee in Juneau Feb. 5.
Gappert said GVEA now provides up to 195 megawatts of power to its residential, commercial and industrial customers in the Interior region. The power requirement for Pogo will be in addition to that.
GVEA also supplies 31 megawatts of power to the Fort Knox gold mine northeast of Fairbanks.
Construction at Pogo is on schedule, Hanneman told the Senate Resources Committee in Juneau. Substantial progress has been made in construction of surface facilities for the mine, including the ore processing mill. In 2005, Teck Pogo will focus on underground construction of tunnels to facilitate mining.
In production the mine will employ about 300 people, Hanneman said. Seven to eight trucks a day will carry ore concentrates from the mine to the Richardson Highway on a 50-mile industrial road built by the company.
Pogo has about 3.2 million ounces of identified gold reserves, and exploration is now underway in an untested zone near the identified ore body.
