Expansion ribbon cutting! Gary Bell, Operations Mgr, METSO North Bay, Mayor Al McDonald, Yvon Theberge, VP Service Operational Hub (Canada), Pirjo Virtanen, VP, Wear Solution Operations Global (Finland), Anthony Davis, VP, Synthetic Wears Operations & Manufacturing Global (Peru). PHOTO SUBMITTED.
METSO Minerals, located on Commerce Crescent in North Bay, officially unveiled its expansion project and held a ribbon cutting with international company dignitaries Thursday morning.
The company with facilities around the world, is considered one of the leading manufacturers of mega liners which are made to protect grinding mills in mines - that manufacturing that is done here in North Bay.
“This project is about five years in the making and I guess we had to wait for the economic conditions to be right for Metso to give the green light and move forward,” said METSO Minerals North Bay Operations Manager Gary Bell.
The facility started expansion construction early in the new year as the facility added another 16,000 square foot addition to their original 52,000 square foot building.
METSO Minerals is perhaps one of North Bay’s best kept secrets as the mining technology company, which has been in North Bay for 41 years, has grown from 58 employees five years ago to 114 currently in 2015.
Bell says their innovative mega liners have caught on with five customers including some in northern Ontario and Newfoundland/Labrador.
“It’s really a good design, it’s going to help our customers reduce their operating costs and they are all seeing that now because they have been in trials for about the past year and a half,” said Bell.
The expansion also will allow their business and production of mega liners to increase in the future.
“With that new business we will presently be out of pressing capacity and what this expansion has allowed us to do is we’ve actually installed a pressing pit which is an area we can install two more presses and as soon as the economy allows us, or demands another press we can immediately purchase a press and put it in place and without the expansion that wouldn’t have been possible,” said Bell.
