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St Barbara (ASX:SBM) is set to restart ore processing at its Touquoy gold mine in Nova Scotia on Tuesday, Nov. 3, following provincial regulatory approval, even as a new federal assessment requirement raises uncertainty over its nearby 15-Mile Processing Hub Project.
The Australian gold miner has completed mill refurbishments and expects commissioning and operations to ramp up through November and December. The site, about 70 km northeast of Halifax, has been inactive since mining stopped in 2023 after the company failed to secure approvals to extend operations beyond its original mine plan.
“The revised mine plans for the 15-Mile Processing Hub Project reflect years of work to redesign and incorporate feedback from First Nations and neighbouring communities to achieve an exceptional design for the collective projects to achieve dramatically improved impacts,” St Barbara managing director and CEO Andrew Strelein said in a statement.
The restart provides St Barbara with a path towards renewed production in Nova Scotia, where the provincial government has been encouraging mineral development. An additional federal review, however, could complicate the company's longer-term strategy to establish a regional processing hub, with construction targeted for mid-2028.
Federal assessment
The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada has imposed a federal assessment requirement on the 15-Mile project, although St Barbara said federal officials expect the process to conclude before construction is scheduled to begin.
The company plans to engage with federal and provincial authorities over the next three weeks to determine whether the decision will increase costs, create administrative complexity or threaten its development timetable.
St Barbara has also begun contingency planning to resume open-pit mining at Touquoy should the assessment delay its processing hub plans.
The miner supports Canada's proposed Bill C-39, which it says would establish reasonable timelines for federal permit applications.
The latest developments follow provincial approval granted in April to St Barbara subsidiary Atlantic Mining Nova Scotia to reprocess about three million tonnes of ore at Touquoy.
Premier Tim Houston's government has sought to expand mineral exploration and development across the province, with mining claims and licences rising sharply over the past year.
The federal assessment adds a potential obstacle to those ambitions, highlighting the challenges mining companies face when navigating overlapping provincial and federal approval processes.