Letalgal wrote:

In todays Globe and Mail there is an article on the Big Nickel(Sudbury). Maybe somebody can post it but I'll type part:

"You heard it here first Mr Rodriguez says. "That chromite is going to come down to the CN line, and it'll go on ocean containers. It'll ship all the way out to Prince Rupert, right onto the ships, and they'll go all the way to China. And we'll buy back stainless steel".

That was a great article and I can understand why Mayor Rodriguez is thinking this way.

First, anyone who buys into the RoF will be aware that labour costs are high and productivity is low in North America, including Sudbury. That is why Vale forced a protracted strike in Sudbury that ended when the union accepted the same contract they were offered one year earlier in May 2009. Now Vale is attempting to change the culture and get some productivity from it's rapidly shrinking workforce.

Second they also understand that electricity prices are too high in Ontario.

McGuinty has started to address this issue by reducing industrial electricity rates on non-peak hours (evenings, nights and weekends). However this is too little too late.

Again Hydro One and all the subsidiaries are beurocratic, unionized and unproductive and this issue will be difficult if not impossible to correct.

Ferrochrome smelters are electricity intensive so we will likely never see a ferochrome smelter in Ontario.....they can't simply operate on non-peak hours.

However to suggest that the Chineese would ship raw chromite ore to China unprocessed does not seem feasible IMHO.

Please correct me if I am wrong but I believe shipping rates are determined, at least partially, by weight. Chromite is very dense and heavy and the cost of shipping it to China could be prohibitive.

At the very least they will mill it in North America and produce a concentrate before it is shipped to a ferrochrome smelter.

SN