Norm Tollinsky is the editor of Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal, a quarterly magazine that showcases the mining expertise of Northern Ontario. http://www.sudburyminingsolutions.com/
“What we’re more concerned about is the use of the route to benefit our interests in the mineral deposits.”
Frank Smeenk, president and CEO of junior miner KWG Resources, can’t think of one good reason to build a road to the Ring of Fire, a remote mineral-rich region in Ontario’s James Bay Lowlands.
“It never occurred to me that anyone would ever contemplate shipping hundreds of millions of tonnes of (chromite ore) over a period of decades if not centuries any way other than by railroad,” he declared in an interview with Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal.
KWG owns 30 per cent of the Big Daddy chromite deposit, and through subsidiary Canada Chrome Corporation, rights to a string of mining claims along an esker stretching some 330 kilometres through wetland terrain from the CN Rail line to the Ring of Fire. Cliffs Natural Resources, which owns 70 per cent of Big Daddy is currently undergoing an environmental assessment and feasibility study to develop its adjacent 100 per cent-owned Black Thor chromite deposit, potentially leaving KWG and its shareholders out in the cold.
KWG’s staking of the route along what it calls “a unique linear sand ridge that stands proud of the vast wetlands” was one way to preserve some leverage over Cliffs and generate returns for its shareholders.