International Mining is a global technical magazine written for miners by miners. John Chadwick is the publisher. john@im-mining.com
In November I wrote about one of America’s greatest mining states, Minnesota. This month I and my attention wander across the border to perhaps an even more important region in the global mining industry, Ontario.
In its far north is the Ring of Fire mining camp. At this early stage, Cliffs Natural Resources is looking at an operation there to treat 4.4 Mt/y of crude ore, expected to produce up to 2.3 Mt/y of chromite concentrate. Noront Resources is more into nickel-copper-PGMs – 1 Mt/y throughput producing approximately 150,000 t/y of high grade nickel-copper concentrate containing significant platinum and palladium.
KWG Resources, one of the first players in the area, has earned a 30% interest in the Big Daddy chromite deposit, which, at a 15% cutoff, has a Measured resource of 29.5 Mt, grading 29% Cr2O3. The Indicated resource is 7.9 Mt grading 26.7% Cr2O3, and there are 4.8 Mt Inferred, grading 25.0% Cr2O3. By comparison, Outokumpu’s Kemi mine in Finland has ore reserves of 41.1 Mt averaging 24.5% Cr2O3. The much higher grades of the Big Daddy compare favourably with those deposits whose ore is shipped directly to foundries with minimal processing. This potential is being investigated.
Ontario has 42 operating mines today and is the largest producer of non-fuel minerals in Canada (21% of the nation’s total non-fuel production, worth over C$10.7billion in 2011).