A real cliffhanger: cliffs VP wants Queen's Park to find ring of fire solution.

AuthorRoss, Ian
PositionVice president

Bill Boor hesitates when asked if his company would have dumped a half-billion dollars in Ontario's Ring of Fire if, back in 2009, it would have known of the myriad of economic. political, cultural, and environmental challenges in trying to develop a mine in the James Bay region.

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"That's a tough question when we're right in the middle of the story," said the vice-president of global ferroalloys for Cliffs Natural Resources, who is the overseer of its Black Thor chromite project.

"I do think about that from time to time. We believe in what we're doing and this is a good project."

Cliffs is heading to the Ontario Superior Court to appeal a ruling that denied Cliffs overland access to Black Thor.

Ontario's Mining and Lands Commissioner ruled on Sept. 10 against the company which was seeking an easement to run a road on the mining claims of KWG Resources.

KWG staked a string of claims atop a sandy ridge to set aside a corridor for a future railroad stretching 328 kilometres from its Big Daddy chromite deposit--of which Cliffs is a 70 per cent owner--to the Canadian National Railway's main line in northwestern Ontario.

The independent government tribunal said granting Cliffs an easement would interfere with KWG's ability to work its claims.

The ruling has bitterly disappointed Cliffs. It accuses KWG of blockading all access to the Far North.

"We expected the commissioner to rule the other way so we were quite surprised by it." said Boor.

Road access is one of a litany of issues that's thrown Cliffs' $3.3-billion plans for an open-pit mine, reload centre and ferrochrome smelter in Sudbury into disarray, and has steadily pushed back the project's original startup date from 2015 to 2017, and likely beyond.

The company is saddled with a high-grade deposit that's stranded hundreds of kilometres away from the nearest railroad. The Black Thor deposit contains 102 million tons of mineralized material, measured and indicated in 2012, and has open-ended potential at depth.

In September. Boor said an appeal was unlikely given that the length of time to wait for a hearing could take months. That was time the company could ill-afford to waste as it re-evaluated whether to reign in its roughly $4 million a month in spending from its $50-million exploration budget this year.

But in early October. Cliffs changed its tune and decided to exercise that option within the 30-day appeal window.

"We decided to do it but I don't think it's the...

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