Yellowknife (Apr 21/03) - The Northwest Territories Power Corporation now owns the Bluefish hydroelectric plant.

The corporation completed the purchase of the facility last week from Miramar Mining of Vancouver for $10 million.

The deal includes free power for Miramar's Con mine until the end of 2004.

For four years after that, Miramar will get an additional five million kilowatts of free power during the clean-up phase of the mine.

The power corporation has been trying to swing a deal to buy the Bluefish facility since 1995. The plant is located 40 kilometres northwest of Yellowknife.

"The transition takes place May 31 but the $10 million is payable at the end of 2004," said Miramar's Brian Labadie.

Operating costs for the plant are estimated at about $400,000 a year.

Miramar, which also owns Giant mine, may keep Con open until early 2005, but not much longer.

Gold prices above $375 an ounce or below $325 for an extended period might change that schedule, but at the moment that doesn't appear likely, said Labadie.

"At this point we are planning to close both Con and Giant by the end of the first quarter of 2005."

Once Con is closed, power from Bluefish will go into the NTPC grid and reduce the need for power from the Jackfish diesel generating plant.

The NTPC has said it plans to reduce the use of diesel from a high of 60 million litres in 1994 to just 14 million litres by 2005.

"In an average year Jackfish uses nine million litres of diesel," said the corporation's Peter Watt.

"That represents more than 42 per cent of the corporation's total annual diesel consumption."

After Yellowknife, Fort Simpson is the next largest user of diesel at two million litres a year.

The industrial rate for power in Yellowknife is 11 cents per kilowatt hour.k