North Bay visits Ring of Fire

By Brandi Cramer The Nugget

Updated 5 hours ago

The Ring of Fire is the opportunity this region needs, and Vic Fedeli hopes a recent trade mission gives local companies a leg up in the competition.

On Friday, the Nipissing MPP hosted a trade mission with seven local mining and manufacturing firms to the Ring of Fire chromite deposit near James Bay.

"This trip is to familiarize North Bay companies with the Ring of Fire and to make introductions," Fedeli said. "So they can see first hand the real need, what the challenges are and spur creativity as to what we can do and what we can offer."

The mission included senior executives from Redpath, J.L. Richards, Stantec, Foraco, First North Enterprises and GAP.

With anywhere from 40 to 100 years of mining potential, Fedeli said he is trying to marry North Bay's expertise with what could become future employment for thousands.

Three principle companies - Cliffs Natural Resources, Noront Resources and KWG - have been exploring the site to better define what minerals are there.

"There right on the surface, a few feet under the bog, is one of the world's richest finds of chromite," Fedeli said, adding the mineral is necessary to make stainless steel.

Fedeli said they have also found nickel. "There is as much nickel down there today, as there is in Sudbury," he said.

"It opens up a whole lot of doors."

But he added there are numerous challenges, mainly the sites location.

"It is in the middle far North, there are no rail lines, no all season roads, no electricity, no network communications . . . there are a lot of challenges," he said.

"This is years of work."

Earlier this year a spokesperson with Cliffs said the company wanted to start an open-pit mine and concentrating plant, as well as a ferrochrome processing plant, by 2015.

With 70 mining manufacturing companies in Nipissing, Fedeli said this is "exactly the opportunity our community has been waiting for in the mining sector."

"We make everything from load haul dump units, all kinds of underground mining vehicles, we make explosives for mining, drill bits. We are a real centre of excellence for mining services."