Smelter won't go where it isn't wanted: Noront.

• Author: Ross, Ian

Ring of Fire developer Noront Resources wants community "buy-in" and power deal from province for ferrochrome processing plant

Noront Resources won't place a ferrochrome smelter in a community that isn't totally comfortable with having one.

Company president-CEO Alan Coutts further added they won't process Ring of Fire chromite ore in Ontario--or Canada for that matter--unless his company can secure a favourable power rate from Queen's Park.

"The level of comfort we get from the communities and the government will help us to pick the site and to make sure that we've got a viable long-term process."

Coutts shed some light on Noront's thought process and approach in selecting a suitable host site for a proposed ferrochrome production plant.

Cutting the ribbon on a smelter could be five to 10 years away but there are 350 plant jobs at stake for a chromite processing facility that could potentially expand and create all kinds of industrial service and supply spinoff opportunities.

It's become a four-city competition between Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Timmins and Thunder Bay/Fort William First Nation.

The communities have a Feb. 2 deadline to submit their best formal pitch.

While each city busily crafts its proposal to Noront, Coutts said the company has been studying the global ferrochrome market, providing processed samples to prospective U.S. stainless steel customers, and having some frank discussions with the province to convince them to enter into negotiations on a long-term power price agreement.

When fully built out, the proposed plant's four electric arc furnaces will draw of 300 megawatts of power.

A conceptual drawing of the layout of the plant in Noront's investor presentation shows four smokestacks.

Coutts said the operation will be a "significant" greenhouse gas emitter, producing a "colourless heat plume" of carbon dioxide.

Coutts didn't have emission output figures at hand in a recent telephone interview, but said it would amount to about half of one per cent of Ontario's annual greenhouse gas emissions.

As the largest landholder of chromite property in the Ring of Fire in Ontario's Far North, building a smelter represents a close to $1-billion project for Noront.

That's why Coutts said it's important to know each political party's stance on cap-and-trade and the carbon tax scheme.

"When you're getting into a dance that's going to last for 50 years or more, you have to understand these long-term ramifications."

The plant's first...