Northern cities chasing ferrochrome smelter.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: MINING

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Five Ontario cities, including four in Northern Ontario, have expressed interest in hosting a ferrochrome smelter for Ring of Fire developer Noront Resources.

"We haven't excluded any sites yet, but it would be a brownfield site somewhere in Ontario," said company president-CEO Al Coutts. "That's our preference."

Coutts said they've been approached by "a number of parties" from Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins, Sudbury and Hamilton.

Factoring into the site selection process, he said, would be the availability of a skilled local workforce, having the electrical infrastructure already in place, and getting the power at the right price.

"I like the concept of having something in Northern Ontario," said Coutts. "Ultimately, it's going to depend too on what kind of power price agreement we can negotiate with the province."

The province offers a Northern Industrial Electricity Rate Program for large industrial consumers of power that, he said, Noront can tap into, but he's also aware of the price that Cliffs Natural Resources had once negotiated for. "So there's a benchmark there."

Last year, Noront acquired all of Cliffs' Ring of Fire chromite properties in a US $27.5-million deal.

Among the unresolved issues Cliffs had in its ill-fated negotiations with the Ontario government was a firm commitment from the province to build the mine-related transportation infrastructure and in reaching an agreement on a favourable power rate in exchange for locating a ferrochrome refinery in Ontario.

Though Noront's Eagle's Nest nickel-copper mine will be the first in its string of base metals and chromite properties to be developed in 2018, its Blackbird chromite deposit is slated to follow in 2021.

The 2018 start date coincides with the province's release of infrastructure money to build an east-west access road to be shared by the First Nation communities and the mining companies.

Noront expects Queen's Park to keep to its schedule.

"We want to get that surefire nickel-copper-PGM deposit at Eagle's Nest up and running, get good jobs created, and get everyone feeling good about mining, how it's getting done and how the benefits are accruing to the communities," said Coutts. "Then we'll take on the first of the chromite projects."

Compared to its larger chromite cousin of Black Thor--with a resource of 137.7 million tonnes--Blackbird is a smaller deposit at 44 million tonnes.

Coutts said it's the perfect deposit to make inroads...