Cliffs holds open house to discuss chromite smelter

By Carol Mulligan, Sudbury Star

Friday, October 26, 2012 6:02:37 EDT AM

http://www.thesudburystar.com/2012/10/26/cliffs-holds-open-house-to-discuss-chromite-smelter

Interested residents who attended an open house Thursd ay in Capreol on had an opportunity to have their comments and complaints considered by Cliffs Natural Resources as it undertakes the environmental assessment for its chromite smelter project.

Cleveland-based Cliffs is about two years into collecting baseline data for its combined federal and provincial environmental assessment for development of its Black Thor deposit near McFaulds Lake in the Ring of Fire.

Jason Aagenes, director of environmental affairs for Cliffs' ferroalloys division, briefed reporters on the environmental assessment of the four components of its Ring of Fire.

Cliffs is looking to develop an open-pit mine in the James Bay lowlands, which will include a concentrator to crush chromite ore and a lined tailings pond.

It is also developing an integrated transportation corridor to move concentrated ore from the Ring of Fire to a ferrochrome processing plant it plans to build at the former Moose Mountain Mine site, north of Capreol.

Aagenes said the project is in the feasibility and environmental assessment stages, and said Cliffs is working on an aggressive deadline to begin mining and processing by 2016. Cliffs originally intended to be in production by 2015.

Cliffs has more than 165 years of mining experience, most of it producing iron ore in Minnesota, Michigan and Labrador, and mining metallurgical coal in West Virgina, Alabama and elsewhere.

Cliffs' "stated goal" is to expand its ability to support steel-making businesses, said Aaegenes. Ferrochrome is used to produce stainless steel, as is nickel.

While Cliffs has a great deal of experience mining under various conditions in different parts of the world, Aaegenes said "the ferrochrome piece is a new component.

"We do not have experience with a ferrochrome furnace, but we have excellent technical expertise in-house that we've recently acquired and through a number of very large, competent engineering firms," he said.

Cliffs has been benchmarking other ferrochrome production plants in countries such as Finland and South Africa.

"We hope to take what we know about some of the good operations and expand on that, and also take what we know about some of the bad operations and make sure to avoid any of those impacts," Aagenes told reporters.

People began trickling into the Capreol Community Centre just before the start of the 4-7 p.m. open house at which Cliffs technical employees were waiting to answer questions.

People attending the open house were asked to fill out, in order of preference, the issues they want addressed during the environmental assessment.

The assessment is looking at physical components such as air, water, dirt, soil and rocks, biological factors such as fish, wildlife, vegetation, plants and bugs, and socioeconomic impacts.

The Cliffs team will then look at the project as it is designed and "estimate" any impact it may have on the environment.

"These can be positive impacts, negative impacts" and no impact at all, said Aaegenes.

That may require Cliffs redesigning the process to "eliminate those impacts and mitigate or otherwise reduce the impacts on the environment."

One of the greatest benefits of the environmental assessment process is getting communities and first nations located near the project involved.

When Cliffs' Black Thor deposit is in production, it will be "moving " about 110,000 tones of material a day, about 10,000 tons of which will be ore, said Aaegenes.

That will go to the concentrator to produce 6,000 tons of product that will shipped via the north-south all-weather road to the CN Rail line for delivery to the ferrochrome processing plant near Capreol.

The north-south corridor is about 340 kilometres long, said Aaegenes. There are currently about 80 kilometres of resource roads built along that corridor, so it will require 260 kilometres of new road construction.

About 3,300 tons of crushed ore will be shipped to the processing plant, resulting in about 1,500 tons of "actual ferrochrome product" that will be mostly sold in North America.

About 2,000 tons a day of slag will be stored at the plant site.

For more about Cliffs, go to www.cliffsnaturalresources.com.