The recent drop in the price of coal and the layoffs in the Obed...

The recent drop in the price of coal and the layoffs in the Obed mine are not deterring Coalspur Mines’ Vista Coal project.

“The answer is no, it won’t affect what we are doing with the Vista Coal project at this point,” David Montpetit, the VP of external affairs and logistics at Coalspur said.

Coalspur is currently in the process of renovating their Hinton office. Montpetit said that the office should house approximately 20 people and they are currently recruiting a new V.P. of operations for that area.

Two senior administrative assistants and a senior environmental co-ordinator will also be hired for the Hinton area operations.

“To say the least we are full steam ahead,” he said.

The Vista Coal project is currently running on schedule. Montpetit explained that that all the environmental research as well as development plans are all running on course. He said Coalspur hopes to have this done by the end of Q1 around April 2013.

Following that they hope to begin the construction of the mine in Q2 or Q3 of next year. He said that would come to pass provided everything does ahead without a hitch.

“Nothing has taken us off-track from what we are doing,” he said.

The Vista Coal project would see a coalmine opened up near Hinton.

Sherritt International who operates the coal mine in the Obed area has laid off a large portion of its workforce. It was reported that around 40 workers lost their jobs. The total workers at the mine have been reported as high as 77 workers before the layoffs.

A spokesperson for Sherritt said in a statement that the layoffs were planned.

“There is an ongoing process at the Obed Mountain mine for the planned reduction in production to manage toward an optimal thermal export sales mix in a declining price environment,” the spokes person said.

Montpetit said that the reason the Vista Coal project has not been altered is because their periodicals show that for the next three to five years the coal market in Asia is showing to be strong, particularly Japan, Korea and China.

“The long range forecast and use seems to be strong,” Montpetit said. “At this point we have no concerns.”

He said that the current plans for the first phase of the project would see the hiring of 500 employees as well as the target of producing up to five tones of coal. The first phase will be the first two years of their mining operations.