Hammerstone Project

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The Hammerstone Quarry is a large limestone quarry in Alberta, Canada. It holds about 750 million tonnes of limestone in its reserves and formed part of Birch Mountain Resources’ Muskeg Valley Quarry area, north of Fort McMurray in Fort McKay, where Birch Mountain controlled mineral rights on nearly one million acres in the oil sands region. As of 2024, it is owned by Burnco Rock Products Ltd.

The Hammerstone Quarry Project was planned to hold about 1 billion tonnes of proven and probable limestone reserves, making it the largest quarry in Canada. The project aimed to supply limestone for construction aggregates, cement, and flue-gas desulfurization in the oil sands process, and to include an aggregate quarry, a lime plant, and a cement plant to serve the Athabasca region through 2060, addressing a local shortage of high-quality limestone and aggregate.

Cost estimates for the project changed over time. A 2006 environmental impact assessment put construction at about $674 million (2006 dollars) with completion targeted for 2040. In 2007, the processing plant design was changed and the cost was revised to about $578 million. After the assets were transferred to Hammerstone Corp, a Brookfield affiliate, the 2009 estimate put construction at about $737 million. Earlier analyses valued the assets at more than $1.6 billion in a 2006 independent report.

Birch Mountain Resources faced financial trouble, and PricewaterhouseCoopers was appointed receiver in 2008 after the company defaulted on debts. In November 2008 Alberta 1439442, later known as Hammerstone Corporation, was created by Brookfield. In January 2009, assets including nearly 1 billion tonnes of limestone reserves and leases covering hundreds of thousands of acres were transferred to Alberta corporation 1439442 for about $50 million, with Hammerstone Corporation operating the project as a Brookfield subsidiary.

Birch Mountain shareholders sued Brookfield in 2010 over the asset transfer. The case moved from Ontario to Alberta courts and repeatedly changed course, with the Alberta court system eventually dismissing it in 2016 and the Supreme Court of Canada declining to hear the appeal in 2017.

In May 2024, Calgary-based Burnco Rock Products Ltd. announced it had purchased Hammerstone Infrastructure Materials, the company that ran the quarry, from Brookfield Business Partners, and Burnco now operates the Hammerstone Quarry.