The territory’s Minto Mine project is seeing more layoffs as it prepares to shift hands from Capstone Mining to Pembridge Resources this summer.

Cindy Burnett, Capstone’s vice-president, confirmed the downsizing last week.

“Overall, Minto has declined as a result of mining plans which have changed, especially the termination of the open-pit mining,” she told the Star.

That termination saw Pelly Construction Ltd., the mine’s biggest contractor, reduce in size in March when the mining giant decided to not continue with the digging of the next open pit project at Ridgetop.

As of May 16, Burnett said, the mine was down to about 110 people at the camp in total, including miners and contractors.

By contrast, there were just under 200 employees when Pelly was still in the picture earlier this year.

“It’s not some massive layoff from 190 to 110; it’s been a gradual decline,” Burnett said, citing the March announcement.

She went on to say Wednesday that there were no further layoffs between May 16 and yesterday.

Just under two years ago, in August 2016, the Star reported that Minto employed a total of 289 workers.

By April of the following year, that number had climbed to 306, with more than half of those being contractors, according to figures provided at the time by Capstone’s general manager, Ron Light.

Burnett added that Capstone makes decisions about contracts but not contract staff, meaning staff could be rerouted to other projects in the area. That decision is left up to each respective company.

A 2012 technical report by Minto Explorations shows that other significant contracts the mine has involves Yukon Energy, Great Northern Oil and Sodexo, a “lodging and catering” company at the camp.

Burnett said Sodexo might be one of the contractors affected.

“Sodexo does provide a number of camp services,” Burnett said.

As a result, she added, their personnel at the mine may “decrease as a result of them serving fewer people.”

Sodexo told the Star last week that negotiations with Capstone were still taking place.

Katherine Power, a spokesperson for the company, wrote in a May 15 email that “there has been no final decision yet on the size of the contract or whether this will affect the current workforce in any way.”

The company could not comment in time for this afternoon’s publication for an update on the May 15 information.

Meanwhile, a Capstone webpage describing Minto, which started production commercially in late 2007, shows the mine had a workforce of 201 and began underground development in September 2012.

Burnett also confirmed that the transfer of the project from Capstone to Pembridge, forecast to be finalized by June, is on track so far.