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by Mike Caswell

Construction delays at Artemis Gold Inc.'s Blackwater mine are headed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia, with Artemis and a contractor blaming each other for problems at the $780-million project. The contractor claims that the delays were caused by Artemis's failure to provide road access or a power grid connection on time, among other things. Artemis, meanwhile, says that the contractor repeatedly violated safety rules, withheld documents and ultimately walked off the job.

The allegations come with Artemis having recently completed the first gold and silver pour at Blackwater. The mine, initially estimated to cost $750-million, looks to have been completed for a figure close to that amount, and the company expects to begin commercial production by the second half of 2025. The legal back-and-forth stems from the time it took to build the mine.

While the delays amounted to several months, the events behind them have become the subject of an $88.9-million lawsuit brought by Sedgman Canada Ltd., which was the mine's construction contractor. The lawsuit, filed at the Vancouver courthouse on Feb. 28, 2025, arises from what Sedgman calls "bad faith conduct" on the part of Artemis. Among other things, Sedgman complains that Artemis refused to allow for reasonable delays in the project, depriving Sedgman of money it would have otherwise earned.

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