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TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Natural Resources Canada minister Joe Oliver on Tuesday continued his crusade to cut down on environmental approval timelines for major projects, to encourage the potential C$92-billion in mining investment the government sees over the next ten years.
Oliver made specific mention of the chromite and nickel projects underway in Ontario’s Ring of Fire district, saying he hoped Cliffs Natural Resources’ Black Thor deposit and Noront Resources’ Eagle’s Nest project make their way through the regulatory processes without hitches.
Cleveland-based Cliffs said earlier this month that it could cost nearly $1-billion to build a mine and a concentrator at Black Thor, where it is carrying out a prefeasibility study, to produce one-million tons of export chromite ore concentrate and 600 000 t of ferrochrome.