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TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Given the vast potential of northern Ontario’s still-dormant Ring of Fire polymetallic region, the timing is now ideal to extend the existing provincial railway infrastructure northwards to open up the region up for mining, KWG Resources president and CEO Frank Smeenk told Mining Weekly Online on Tuesday.
He argued that the historically low prevailing interest rates, and reduced materials costs, currently provided Canada and the province with the best window of opportunity yet to construct a railway that would enable minerals to be brought to market at the lowest possible unit cost, for more than a century of expected mining in the region.
“Canadian chromite production would have to earn its place in the international market, where we would compete with the world’s leading producers South Africa, India and Kazakhstan. Critical to the success of opening up the Ring of Fire is to ensure minerals could be transported to market in the most efficient manner at the lowest possible unit costs,” Smeenk said.
Despite being JV partners in developing certain projects in the Ring of Fire, KWG and US diversified miner Cliffs Natural Resources are at loggerheads over the proposed mode of transport into the Ring of Fire.