Nutrien says all 34 maintenance workers, who were trapped underground at its Cory potash mine southwest of Saskatoon, have been safely brought back to the surface.
The Saskatoon-based company said on Wednesday its service shaft at the mine was not operating and the workers were on stand-down since Tuesday afternoon.
Nutrien spokesperson Will Tigley said they were doing work on both their service and production shafts this week.
“We had an unforeseen circumstance on our service shaft and therefore we decided to extract those underground by way of our production shaft. We had different options available to us and chose the safest and most efficient means,” Tigley said.
“We completed maintenance on our production shaft and extracted people (Wednesday).”
Tigley said the last group of employees were brought to the surface at around 6:15 p.m. CT.
He added the workers had plenty of food, water, power, Wi-Fi, and contact with the company and their families. No injuries were reported.
Nutrien said its Cory operation is not producing potash and is currently in its summer maintenance turnaround.
-With files from Global’s Thomas Piller