Breakwater Resources and the Myra Falls mine

analysisBreakwater Resources Ltd, a Vancouver mining company formed in its present form in 2011 by amalgamation with Nyrstar Canada Resources, is wholly owned by TPTE and owns Myra Falls Mine Ltd. The Myra Falls mine on Vancouver Island operated from 1966 to 2023 and is in care and maintenance. Its general manager told the court that TPTE became the indirect majority shareholder of Nyrstar, the mine's owner, in 2019. ^{1 2 3 4}

analysisOn 18 December 2023 Myra Falls Mine Ltd. obtained an initial order under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, staying proceedings against it, and Trafigura US Inc. agreed to lend up to $21 million as interim lender. The general manager described the group as its only source of financing since 2019, with more than $100 million of shareholder loans; Breakwater was also its lender, and Trafigura Canada bought its concentrate under offtake contracts. In February 2024 the company asked for the stay to be extended and for approval of a sale process. ¹

outcome

The record does not show the outcome of the requested stay extension or of the sale and investment solicitation process.

analysisCanada's environmental offenders register records that on 19 October 2020 Breakwater Resources pleaded guilty before the Court of Quebec to discharging an acutely lethal effluent into the Wedding River after a flocculant spill at the Langlois mine on 28 February 2018, and was fined $350,000 for the Environmental Damages Fund. ^{1 2}

qualification

The offence took place in February 2018, while the mine belonged to the Nyrstar group; the record shows TPTE becoming Nyrstar's indirect majority shareholder in 2019, and the group's 2023 prospectus says the Myra Falls and Langlois mines were transferred from Nyrstar to Trafigura's mining group in October 2020.