Representatives from Metso Corp., Prince George city council and Lhhedli Tenneh First Nation met Wednesday, June 4 at 1055 Legacy Rd., just off Boundary Road, to break ground on a new service centre.
Metso, based in Helsinki, Finland is a manufacturer for the mining aggregates market and has chosen Prince George as the location of its next service centre.
The centre will be staffed by skilled technicians who will provide detailed inspections, full-scope repairs and rapid equipment turnaround to mining products, in addition to other services across Prince George, the company states in a press release.
It's set to open in the first quarter of 2026.
“When you look at the landscape of mining in British Columbia, you've got the historical operating mines, but you're also looking at the future where we're going to see growth in mining,” said Justin Ayotte, Metso's vice-president of sales and services in Canada. “If we look at the Golden Triangle and everything, Prince George made honestly the best possible place for us to choose this location. Looking at the trades of people that we actually can get to work for Metso, with experience in industrial operations such as forestry or mining, but also trade schools. Prince George definitely checks the box for us.”
The recent opening of Artemis Gold's Blackwater Mine has also impacted Metso's decision to open this new service centre and they hope to invest locally and give back to the communities that support mining in the North.
“Projects like the Artemis project and companies like Centerra of Golden Mount Milligan are big customers of ours," said Ayotte. "To be able to invest in the locality and bring back into the communities where our customers are operating is one of the key things we want to do at Metso.”
Also in attendance at the groundbreaking ceremony was Chief Dolleen Logan, who spoke with the media about what this new site can provide to not only First Nations but everyone in the North.
“I'm excited about it,” said Logan. “I've heard about the training, they're going to build a huge facility, millions of dollars and the training, to me that's the key. Not only are they supplying and building and making and installing all the equipment in the mining company, but they're talking about training people how to run it. To me it's an opportunity for not only First Nations but anyone who wants to start a company, to come, go to school, get trained, and be able to maintain these mines that are coming in.”
Logan added that while she acknowledges the damage that mining can have on the land in the North, she also acknowledges how future mining development can lead to a more prosperous North.
“It's prosperous and it's for everyone in the North to be able to stay home, that's a key for me,” said Logan. “To keep everyone home, it is just the mining and what it does to our natural resources, what it does to our land, but we do understand that it is for the future. We need jobs, we need to have people here, we need to extract whatever is in the ground to be able to keep the North growing, which we want to do.”
