Last month, I had the pleasure of participating in the 16th Annual Sudbury Mining Week, not as President and CEO of FNX Mining, but as the event’s Honorary Chairman.

It was appropriate to celebrate Mining Week in Canada, and especially in Sudbury – one of the most prolific mining camps in the world.  In Canada, mining contributes $40 billion dollars or 5% of Canadian GDP every year and pays $4.7 billion in corporate taxes alone.  This industry directly employs 370,000 Canadians and is the largest private sector employer of Aboriginals.  Canada remains the leading source of new capital for the global mining industry accounting for 36% of the $53 billion raised in 2007 or net $19 billion. 

As a mining engineer who has spent his career in Africa, the United Sates and Latin America, I can confirm that there are few places in the world where mining is embraced and supported as it is in Sudbury. 

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“We had the pick of the geologists’ crop in the depressed mining sector of 2002 and subsequently built one of the country’s biggest, youngest and most innovative exploration teams,” continues MacGibbon. “And with all that historical data, our fantastic computer- literate staff played a key role in helping us decide where to drill.”

Right from the beginning, this junior’s exploration mindset was on steroids. From 2002 to 2007 FNX will have spent more than $100 million on exploring its properties in the Sudbury Basin. Read the rest of this entry »

“Our company has a strategic position in the trillion-dollar Sudbury Basin which by far, is the richest mining district in North America,” observes Terry MacGibbon, executive chair of FNX Mining Company Inc. “With China’s and eventually India’s voracious hunger for metals, expected to last for decades, the long-term growth and future of our company on solid ground.”

MacGibbon’s dedication to the region is proudly on display in the front lobby of the company’s University Ave. head office – adjacent to Toronto’s high-rise financial core where many of the country’s top mining analysts and investors work – with a bold eight-by-four sculpted wall hanging in the shape of the famous Sudbury Basin.

“Most Canadians don’t realize the Sudbury Basin is a global ‘metallic super power’ and that there are many incredibly rich mineral deposits still to be discovered here. This 120 year old mining camp will be producing nickel, copper and platinum for at least another century if not more,” he said.

With two operating mines on the north range of the Sudbury Basin, another mine ready for production in 2008 and two other promising deposits in the district, many have overlooked the phenomenal growth of FNX Mining.

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