Australian company eyes purchase of Yukon's Wolverine mine

An Australian company has put in a bid to buy Yukon Zinc's Wolverine Mine in southeast Yukon. Yukon Zinc owes more than $646 million to creditors after shutting down in January.

MinQuest, based in Brisbane, Australia, is the only firm so far to go public with its bid for the Wolverine Mine.

Managing director Jeremy Read says the company is currently working to raise the money it needs to finance the deal. "It's well advanced and we're certainly putting a lot of time and effort into it," he said. "We're very keen to make this transaction happen so we're working very hard on it." 

MinQuest has little interest in the underground mine at Wolverine, but Read says the company has a mining project 28 kilometres southwest of Wolverine and would like to use Yukon Zinc's mill to process copper gold concentrate. He says this is a good time to develop the mine because the current economic slump makes everything cheaper.

"During downturns, you can get access to projects and infrastructure ... to do things, build things — it's a lot cheaper now than it was."

Read says the monitor overseeing Yukon Zinc's protection from its creditors has not told him if there are other bids for Wolverine.