Agnico Eagle Mines Limited, Odyssey mine

Malartic, Quebec, Canada

The Odyssey mine is an underground gold operation owned and operated by Agnico Eagle Mines Limited as part of the Canadian Malartic complex in the Abitibi region of Quebec, Canada. Underground production began in 2023 using conventional transverse and longitudinal stoping methods.

As mining advanced, Agnico Eagle looked to modern technologies to improve safety, efficiency and productivity, especially in areas with complex stope geometries and limited void availability.

The situation

In September 2024, Agnico Eagle asked Orica to support the blasting of two stopes with difficult geometries. These presented potential recovery and safety challenges if mined using conventional methods.
Agnico Eagle wanted to understand how the WebGen™ wireless initiation system could:

• improve ore recovery in complex geometries
• address void ratio constraints
• reduce safety risks linked to personnel re‑entry onto sill pillars after initial blasts

Conventional drilling and blasting would have required additional waste development and increased dilution to achieve full recovery.

Technical solutions

Orica and Agnico Eagle’s technical services teams collaborated to develop a WebGen™ enabled reverse throw retreat mining method for stopes with challenging geometries.

The approach used preloaded wireless blast rings positioned behind the open hole where the orebody plunged away from the opening void. The void was created using an initial i‑kon™ toe shot, after which the remaining stope was preloaded with WebGen™ primers grouped into multiple blast identifiers.

Once sufficient void was generated through mucking, the WebGen™ blasts were fired remotely. This removed the need for personnel to re‑enter the stope area after the second blast, improving safety and providing more flexibility in how blasts were sequenced.

The reverse throw retreat method was first applied in the 051-CHA-113C (113C) stope as part of evaluating the technique at the Odyssey mine, as shown in Figure 0-2
 

The second evaluation block was the adjacent 051-CHA 115C (115C) stope with similar geometry. However, this stope’s ore shape extended further north and south. The extended ore shape demanded additional design considerations. Therefore, the design team incorporated six additional wireless blasts on the south and north sides as shown in Figure 0-3. The design of the 115C stope enhanced the safety benefit of reduced worker re entry while again improving ore recovery through void ratio optimization and more effective material movement away from the shallow-dipping footwall. 

The third evaluation stope to apply wireless blasting was the 046-115C block. This block used WebGen to improve ore recovery where undercut development had not extended. There were also some unexpected geotechnical issues after the Blast 1 toe shot, so WebGen was divided into eight blast shapes including the wall holes adjacent to the raise, as shown in Figure 0-4. This design was selected to improve blasting sequence geometry within the constraints of the orebody dimensions and adverse ground conditions.  

The result

Across all evaluation stopes, breaking the blasting sequence into smaller wireless blasts that could be fired independently or together gave the mine the ability to adjust the sequence as each stope progressed. This supported higher recovery and reduced the need for personnel re‑entry.

• 051‑cha‑113c delivered 95 percent recovery against 92 percent planned, with 8 percent dilution.
• 051‑cha‑115c delivered 97 percent recovery against 92 percent planned, with 13 percent dilution.
• 046‑cha‑115c used additional WebGen™ blast shapes to manage geotechnical conditions.  

" Customer Testimonial

Acknowledgements

Orica acknowledges the collaboration of Agnico Eagle Mines Limited, including Joeylee Proulx, Maxime Charron, Maxime Ayotte and Jerome Dallaire, and thanks the broader Odyssey mine team for their contribution.
Orica also recognises Matthew Perry, Mike Switzer and the project team who delivered the Odyssey mine work.