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REGIONAL NEWS - U.S. & CANADA Ring of Fire Forms Focus for Far Northern Ontario Development "A new frontier area" is how Dr. Christine Kaszycki, assistant deputy minister at the provincial Ministry of Northern Development and Mines' Ring of Fire Secretariat, described the development potential in far northern Ontario. Speaking to an international press gathering in Toronto in late 2012, Dr. Kaszycki went on to cite the new Ring of Fire prospects as being "one of the most significant developments in Ontario for decades," providing the opportunity to create a wholly new mining center— together with its infrastructure—within this huge area in the north of the province. Already, two projects are at EIA and feasibility-study stage: Cliffs Natural Resources' Black Thor chromite property and Noront Resources' Eagle's Nest, which is being evaluated as a new nickel-copper producer. However, these are by far from being the only discoveries within the district, where De Beers first found copperzinc mineralization during its exploration 8 E&MJ; • JANUARY 2013 for diamonds; exploration that resulted in the development of the region's only current producer: Victor, 150 km to the east. Today, some 23 companies have ground holdings in the area, with current prospects including eight for copper and zinc, five for chromite, and one each for vanadium and nickel-copper. In addition, KWG Resources has staked out claims along a potential line-of-rail from the existing transcontinental railway near Geraldton, northward for over 300 km to the Ring of Fire. As Dr. Kaszycki explained, infrastructure development will be critical to bringing any mines on stream. At the moment, she said, Noront and Cliffs are looking at different routings for all-weather road haulage to supply the area and take products out to a railhead, with Noront's initial choice running some 450 km west and then south, while Cliffs' preferred line runs 320 km due south. However, other factors are also at play here, and transport links are just one facet of the overall infrastructure package that will have to be put in place. Five First Nations communities stand to be most affected by any mine development, with others likely to be impacted by transport route developments. On the positive side, of course, will be vastly improved access to facilities such as health care, plus the potential for extending the existing provincial power grid to service communities that today rely on diesel generation. Plans are already in hand for a C$1.1 billion grid expansion further west, to connect communities as far north as Goldcorp's Musselwhite mine, with the Wawatay News reporting recently that the First Nationsowned company, Wataynikaneyap Power, is evaluating further expansions from this to include the Red Lake and Ring of Fire camps at some stage in the future. Thus far, Cliffs has committed to establishing a ferrochrome smelter at Capreol, north of Sudbury, to handle the 2.2 million mt/y of chromite concentrates it expects eventually to produce from its Ring of Fire properties. Prefeasibility studies have indicated capex of US$3.3 billion, including US$1.8 billion for the smelter. As its side of the deal, the Ontario provincial government has agreed to invest in transport infrastructure, as well as a suite of commitments to the First Nations peoples, including regional environmental monitoring, infrastructure planning, social support and resource revenue sharing with directly impacted communities. Meanwhile, Noront's recently completed studies on Eagle's Nest has indicated capex of C$609 million for an underground operation producing 150,000 mt/y of nickel-copper concentrates. As the keynote speaker at the meeting, Deputy Minister George Ross of the Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines stated that the province is one of the world's premier exploration destinations, with over C$1 billion spent in 2011. Recent amendments to the provincial mining legislation have produced one of the most competitive tax and fiscal systems anywhere in the world, he said, with tax concessions for new operations in remote locations. Consultation with First Nations groups is required for proposed developments, he added, while environmental www.e-mj.com