Nunavut mining rush attracts China-backed MMG – Pav Jordan (Globe and Mail – September 5, 2012)

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China-backed base metals producer MMG Ltd. is staking its claim in an industry race to the Canadian Arctic, filing plans to build two mines in Nunavut in the next six years.

MMG, which recently changed its name from Minmetals Resources Ltd., said on Tuesday it had submitted a project proposal for the Izok Corridor project – comprising the Izok Lake and High Lake deposits – to the Nunavut Impact Review Board and other authorizing agencies, starting a process that could see production as early as the last quarter of 2018.

Like other miners from Canada and abroad, MMG is looking for ways to grow as global resources become more scarce, and it is one of many global players with boots on the ground in Nunavut, where highly prospective geology boasts diverse deposits from uranium to iron ore, copper, zinc, gold, silver and even diamonds.

“There are a lot of minerals there, it is packed,” said Patricia Mohr, Scotiabank’s commodity economist in Toronto and a keynote speaker at the annual Nunavut Mining Symposium in Iqaluit, the territorial capital.

“I call Nunavut Canada’s new mining frontier, and there are many projects there that are under way,” she said.

The Izok Corridor, east of Nunavut’s Bathurst Inlet in the Kitikmeot Region of the territory, is expected to produce 180,000 tonnes of zinc in concentrate and 50,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate per year once in production. More impressive than the size of the deposits is the grade – 12-per-cent zinc and 2.5-per-cent copper – at Izok Lake, with similar grades at High Lake.

By comparison, global mining giants such as Chile’s Codelco are embarking on copper projects with grades below 1 per cent in some cases.

MMG spokesman Troy Hey said that “if everything goes to plan,” Izok Lake could come on line just as it winds up operations at its Century mine, Australia’s largest zinc producer, some five years from now.

The project proposal for Izok Corridor is one of the initial regulatory requirements for the project, and follows a successful pre-feasibility study last year. A definitive feasibility study was started in 2012 and will take from 18 to 24 months to complete.

For the rest of this article, please go to the Globe and Mail website: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/nunavut-mining-rush-attracts-china-backed-mmg/article4519069/