Sault mayor confident in their Ring of Fire smelter pitch.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: MINING

Provenzano says Algoma Steel-CCAA won't interfere with furnace site selection process

Sault Ste. Marie Mayor Christian Provenzano harbours no worries that the CCAA process with Essar Steel Algoma will jeopardize his city's pursuit of a ferrochrome plant.

Sault councillors were given a briefing by city and economic development staff on Nov. 20 on their preparations to provide Ring of Fire developer Noront Resources with a compelling case to select the northeastern Ontario community as the host site for a chromite processing facility.

The Sault, Sudbury, Thunder Bay and Timmins are the four cities in the running as part of a competitive process staged by Noront.

In early November, the Toronto mining company sent out the formal request for information documents for each city to make their best pitch. The proposal deadline is Feb. 2.

"When we look at the document that the EDC (Economic Development Corp.) and the city received, we can provide all the information that they're looking for without being hampered by the CCAA (Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act) process," Provenzano told councillors.

Essar Steel Algoma entered creditor protection in November 2015.

Based on his knowledge of the proceedings, Provenzano expressed confidence that the CCAA process will finish in early 2018.

He assured council there's been a positive and supportive stream of dialogue with executives at Essar Steel Algoma and CCAA lenders.

"We haven't seen any roadblock or negativity either from the term lenders or the Algoma executive."

Noront president-CEO Al Coutts told Northern Ontario Business last summer that the company was delaying its decision on a smelter site until the restructuring process at Essar was concluded. He did not give any indication which city the company preferred.

Provenzano said he's briefed Noront officials on the status of the CCAA restructuring talks and relayed to them that the term lenders are "happy to meet with them and they can have discussions amongst themselves about the use of the land."

"Obviously they need to have the participation of the company (Essar Steel Algoma) because that's where it's going to be located, but we have no reason to believe at this point that we don't have the participation of the company."

The EDC and city staff are busily preparing a proposal document for Noront as part of the mine's development process for the plant site.

The city has chosen a four-person project team to put the package together, with input...