This column was originally published in the Spring, 2010 issue of Highgrader Magazine which is committed to serve the interests of northerners by bringing the issues, concerns and culture of the north to the world through the writings and art of award-winning journalists as well as talented freelance artists, writers and photographers.
Gregory Reynolds is a Timmins, Canada-based columnist who writes extensively about mining and northern Ontario issues.
For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery
Using a subsidiary of KWG Resources, Canadian Chrome Corporation, (Cliffs had quietly became KWG’s principal shareholder before the project leaked out in a one paragraph item in a monthly magazine in September 2009) Cliffs was able to avoid publicity.
What people should be asking McGuinty is two things: when did he become aware of the project and more importantly, what did he promise Cliffs to get it to commit to a project where native groups were likely to block it for many years, perhaps decades?
Cliff has said it expects to put the $800-million mine into production by 2015. It plans to spend $10 million this year on the project.
The original plan was to have Cliff’s railway link up with the Canadian National Railway main line and transport ore to Thunder Bay where a smelter and electric arc furnace complex would be built.
The 400,000 to 800,000 tonnes of ferrochrome produced per year would be shipped to U.S. steel companies.