Great Lakes port swayed Noront in picking Sault for ferrochrome plant: Smelter announcement sets wheels in motion for Queen's Park to release Ring of Fire development strategy.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Mining

Noront Resources president-CEO Alan Coutts decided it was finally time to end the suspense.

After months, even years, of deferred decisions by the Ring of Fire mine developer to select a location for its ferrochrome production facility, the Toronto-based junior miner picked Sault Ste. Marie to be the host community for the proposed $1.1-billion smelter.

I The company made its an nouncement in the Sault, May informing the community of its plans to place the facility on Algoma Steel's expansive brown-field port lands, just west of the steelworks.

The Sault and Timmins were the two finalists in the running to host the smelter in a site selection process orchestrated by Noront in February 2018. Thunder Bay and Sudbury were eliminated from contention last July.

"We just felt we were at a point where we'd kept these communities hanging long enough," said Coutts.

"We'd come to a conclusion and they (the Sault) checked the final boxes that we had and we thought, let's make the decision."

Though the ribbon cutting for the processor remains years away (with a mid-2025 groundbreaking followed by a three-year build) with it comes the promise of 300 to 500 direct jobs and spinoffs of more than 1,000 indirect industrial supply jobs.

The completion of the plant coincides with Noront's start of commercial production at its proposed Blackbird chromite mine project in the James Bay region in mid-2028.

Noront designed the Sault processing facility to be scalable as it gradually brings its stable of chromite deposits into production over the next several years.

"It's still down the road but it's still a major announcement for us," said Coutts.

"It determines who we're going to be working with for decades to come. It's a great level of support we've gotten here and we're feeling the love."

Noront is the leading player in the mineral belt of the James Bay lowlands with three mine-able base metal deposits, four chromite deposits, and a number of promising exploration plays, mostly acquired from Cliffs Natural Resources in 2015.

For the Sault, landing the ferrochrome smelter is a sorely needed bit of economic good news for a struggling city, still recovering from the lengthy bankruptcy protection process of its largest private employer, in Algoma Steel.

In making their selection, Coutts said both Timmins and the Sault had their strong points.

The Kidd Metallurgical Site in Timmins offered lower capital costs since the former base metal smelter is a permitted...