Alamos Gold Inc. is a cutting-edge gold mining outfit based in Toronto. The firm is a publicly-traded company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange and elsewhere (NYSE:AGI), but this is where the similarities between Alamos and its direct competitors end. Alamos Gold Inc. is, quite simply, an innovator in the gold mining space, and in mining, heavy industry, and manufacturing more broadly.
Alamos Gold is actively committed to a reduction in the carbon footprint that has always been seen as a necessary evil in the mineral extraction process across all mining companies and mineral reserves. Miners today are taking steps to eliminate this negative impact as investors and other private citizens continue to grow in volume with their demands for a healthier approach to social responsibility and the planet itself.
Social responsibility is a guiding principle at AGI.
Continuous operation of miner sites has been a detriment to social responsibility until recently when firms like Alamos have begun introducing new and industry-leading process changes that place the environment at a premium in the extraction of ounces of gold across their active mines (the Young-Davidson mine, Island Gold mine, and Mulatos mine in Northern Ontario and Mexico, respectively).
Investor email alerts that go out to those invested in the company often share heavily in this sentiment. Of course, for any business, production and efficiency of process are crucial to providing shareholders with value addition and the company itself with rising profit margins over time. Yet investing in sustainable processes is something that Alamos has deemed a key component of the longer growth horizon, and for good reason.
Electricity utilization is a crucial changeover.
People all around the world are beginning to wake up to the reality of climate science and the existential threat that a warming planet poses to our continued survival on this rock. Gold miners are a crucial component of the industriousness that makes our world turn, but they can also contribute to the ongoing problem if they aren’t careful and considerate of the environment around them. One great example of the changes being implemented within the Alamos family of gold mines is the sustainable use of electric power.
The Mulatos mine is particularly poised for excellent power usage. While mining ounces of gold ore is an energy and labor-intensive pursuit, utilizing sustainable power solutions and tapping directly into the local power grid can dramatically reduce the carbon footprint that has often come alongside the heavy machinery fueled by diesel generators.
Diesel has often been the go-to power source in the past, prized for its high torque production and long sustainability in terms of continuous operation. Diesel engines offer greater energy density than most other power sources, yet the operation of diesel-powered tools and generators takes a heavy toll on the environment in the immediate perimeter spaces around a gold mine.
In addition to new and innovative power solutions that reduce this harsh after effect, the elimination of heavy chemical use—like cyanide—is transforming the way in which gold mines pollute the environment further. Without the use of chemical agents in the extraction and digging processes, groundwaters are made more secure over the long term and the overall health of local area residents can be prioritized alongside the corporate goals of growth and profit.
These aims don’t have to be mutually exclusive, and Alamos is showing that the introduction of socially responsible drilling and extraction processes can actually compete in robust ways with the older models of gold mining. This change is a long time coming, and Alamos stands at the forefront of this highly beneficial new way forward.
