There are 25 million ounces of gold under the region’s feet ready to be taken out in the next five years.
Even without major discoveries in the Ring of Fire, the region will have a mining boom industry experts say. There are 11 mining projects outside of the highly publicized Ring of Fire that are expected to be operational by 2017 with an expected total life of more than 100 years.
Rubicon Minerals, which is mining for gold under Red Lake, is expected to start late next year and hit 2.8 million ounces of gold in its high-grade deposit over a dozen years. A lower grade deposit, which in industry terms is about a gram of gold for every tonne of rock mined, like Rainy River Resources’ 5.72 million ounces will run for 13 years.
Those two projects alone represent almost a billion dollars in capital costs with more than 700 construction jobs and nearly 900 operations jobs.
As of May 15, the Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission estimates the mining projects ready to go will create at least 4,000 new jobs.