Drilling Venture Helpful For Northerners

Drilling Venture Helpful For Northerners

Thursday, September 17, 2009 at 12:15

Partnering with a veteran diamond drilling company to do work in northern Saskatchewan “makes good business sense” for the English River First Nation, according to a senior band employee.

Ron Collette is the vice-president of operations for one of English River’s flagship companies, Tron Power, which has been working in the northern mining industry for more than 20 years.

Collette says a new partnership between English River and B.C.-based Lyncorp Drilling Services — a subsidiary of Golconda Resources — will allow the First Nation to approach the mining industry from a new angle.

“Especially on the exploration side, for some reason the northerners, we were never heavily involved in it. This is the first chance we get at being involved in the front end of the resource exploration industry,” says Collette.

He says there are a number of individual drillers in the North — including English River — and it makes sense to have them working in their own backyard.