It’ll be up to Natural Resources Minister Bill Mauro to decide if Cliffs Natural Resources gets permission for an overland transportation route into the Ring of Fire.
On July 29, an Ontario Divisional Court set aside a decision reached by the Ontario Mining and Lands Commissioner last September that denied Cliffs an easement for a road to reach its Black Thor chromite deposit atop the mining claims of a rival company, KWG Resources.
Cliffs, which has halted all exploration on its chromite project, launched the appeal last October. The case was heard in Toronto, June 16-17.
The bone of contention with Cliffs has been over the use of surface rights by KWG to stake a 330-kilometre long corridor using mining claims from Nakina north to the exploration camps in the James Bay lowlands.
Cliffs contended that KWG was holding other mining companies hostage by blocking a critical path into the region. KWG, through its Canada Chrome subsidiary, wants to use the corridor for a future railroad.
KWG also has a 30-per-cent stake in the Big Daddy chromite deposit that it shares in an adversarial relationship with Cliffs.