Cliffs would save millions locating chromite plant in Manitoba or Quebec: Hampton

By The sudbury Star Staff

Posted 5 hours ago

Cliffs Resources would save tens of millions in energy costs each year by opening its proposed chromite smelter in either Manitoba or Quebec, a Northern Ontario NDP MPP told the Ontario legislature Tuesday.

Howard Hampton, NDP MPP Kenora-Rainy River and former NDP leader, said that according to the Manitoba Hydro website, a company like Cliffs Resources would pay a monthly hydro bill of about $5.3 million a month (or $63 million a year) if it located the smelter in Ontario.

The same refinery located in Manitoba would pay a hydro bill of $ $2.1 million a month (or $26 million a year).

The Quebec figures are $2.8 million a month, or $33.5 million a year, Hampton said.

"The real travesty in all of this is the fact that in Northern Ontario, we generate some of the cleanest and greenest electricity (mostly from falling water) at some of the lowest costs on the planet, yet we are not allowed to use that electricity at an affordable price to create jobs in Northern Ontario because of the McGuinty Liberals 'made in Toronto for Toronto' electricity policy," Hampton said in a release.

Cliffs, a Cleveland-based mining company, plans to a site near Capreol as place to locate a smelter that would process chromite ore from the so-called Ring of Fire 500 km north of Thunder Bay.

The company, however, has warned that Ontario's high hydro rates would deter Cliffs from building the plant anywhere in Ontario.

The project would create as many as 1,300 jobs, including 500 in Capreol, if the smelter was built there.

Hampton said the Liberal government is "out of touch" on the effect that hydro-electricity rates have on development in Northern Ontario.

He said Xstrata closed a copper smelter in Timmins last year because of high hydro rates. Vale did the same to a copper smelter in Sudbury four years ago for the same reason, he added.

"Both of these companies continue to mine the copper ore in Ontario, but both of them now ship the ore to smelters and refineries in Quebec to have the ore processed there because they save millions of dollars each year in hydro-electricity costs due to Quebec's much lower industrial hydro rates," Hampton said.

Hampton said Xstrata was paying hydro bills of $70 million per year at its Timmins smelter, and now is paying less than half that amount in Quebec ($33.5 million), but the shutdown of the smelter in Timmins meant the loss of more than 2,000 direct and indirect jobs in the community.