Teck's Cardinal River Operations Recognized with TSM Leadership Award

Award recognizes facility-level excellence in corporate responsibility

HINTON, AB, Oct. 7, 2014 /CNW/ - For its outstanding performance in the Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) initiative's three focus areas—environmental stewardship, communities and people, and energy efficiency—Teck's Cardinal River Operations in Alberta has been awarded with a special TSM Leadership Award.

The TSM Leadership Award is granted only when a facility meets or exceeds a level "A" ranking in their results across all of the six performance areas of the TSM initiative (known as "protocols")—Aboriginal and community outreach, crisis management, safety and health, tailings management, biodiversity conservation management, and energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions management. A facility's TSM results must be externally verified to be eligible for this recognition.

"We are pleased to recognize Cardinal River Operations with the TSM Leadership Award, which is an important and rare distinction that celebrates a facility for its achievements in the TSM initiative," said Pierre Gratton, MAC's President and CEO. "I congratulate Teck for its leadership in environmental management, for how it engages with its communities, and for being a model for other mine sites across Canada."

Teck's President and CEO, Don Lindsay, presented Cardinal River staff with the award at a recognition event on-site yesterday. Teck's Cardinal River Operations was honoured with TSM Performance Awards for each of the six performance areas, as well as the TSM Leadership Award for its 2013 results. 

"This award reflects the commitment of the employees at Cardinal River Operations to engaging with communities, safeguarding the environment and working to continually improve our sustainability performance," said Don Lindsay, President and CEO, Teck.

"At Cardinal River, protecting the environment and working cooperatively with communities is part of our core business, and we will continue to work hard to meet our sustainability goals," said Matt Cole, General Manager, Cardinal River Operations.

While Cardinal River's scores reflect leadership across all TSM performance areas, the facility stands out for demonstrating best practices in Aboriginal and community outreach, biodiversity conservation management, and energy use and GHG emissions management. In these areas, Cardinal River achieved the highest possible ranking—level "AAA"—across all of the indicators that make up these protocols.

Teck's Cardinal River Operations joins an elite group of a small number of mine sites that have achieved this distinction in TSM's 10-year history, including Syncrude Canada's oil sands facility (awarded in 2007), Barrick Gold Corporation's Hemlo Mine (awarded in 2011) and Teck's Elkview Operations (awarded in 2013).

Teck's Cardinal River Operations, with more than 340 employees, is located approximately 42 kilometres south of Hinton, Alberta and produces high-quality steelmaking coal. The current annual production capacities of the mine and preparation plant is 2.5 million tonnes of clean coal.

About MAC
The Mining Association of Canada is the national organization for the Canadian mining industry.  Its members account for most of Canada's production of base and precious metals, uranium, diamonds, metallurgical coal, mined oil sands and industrial minerals and are actively engaged in mineral exploration, mining, smelting, refining and semi-fabrication. Please visit www.mining.ca. 

For more information, please contact:
Jessica Draker
[phone] x225 or [email protected]  

Johanne Senécal
[phone] x325 or [email protected]

About Teck
Teck is a diversified resource company committed to responsible mining and mineral development with major business units focused on copper, steelmaking coal, zinc and energy. Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, its shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols TCK.A and TCK.B and the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TCK. More information about Teck can be found at www.teck.com.

For more information, please contact:
Chris Stannell
[phone] or [email protected]

SOURCE: Mining Association of Canada (MAC)

Jessica Draker, [phone] x225 or [email protected], Johanne Senécal, [phone] x325 or [email protected]; Chris Stannell, [phone] or [email protected]