Patrick Ryan, a mining consultant with Mining For Facts, who has followed the chromite market for four decades, says the world is awash in the commodity, with no need for any new product from the Ring of Fire, or anywhere else.

“It’s incomprehensible that this was ever a viable project, “ says Mr. Ryan. “No one in their right mind would put a dime into it.”...

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Lost in all the hullabaloo is the harsh reality that there doesn’t appear to be a broader economic case for building a chromite mine in the region, or any other place in the world, for that matter.

According to a May report by the U.S. Geological Survey, there are already enough proven chromite reserves in the world to last for centuries. South Africa and Kazakhstan dominate the production side of the market, and they provide China, which controls much of the world’s stainless steel market, a steady supply of cheap raw ore.

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...And what of the the geopolitical stability of the countries which current produce approximately 80% of the world's chromite ore?...South Africa (49%), Kazakhstan (18%) , Turkey (9%) ...(  https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/xx/pdf/2018/11/kpmg-commodity-insights-bulletin-chromite.pdf         )`

Also not mentioned is the fact that the larger expected economic benefits of the raw chromite ore would be seen in the beneficiation process as it is processed to ferrochrome. The major supplier of chromite ore (South Africa) to the world's largest consumer (China) is  increasingly exporting the chromite ore to China for beneficiation  as the process requires large energy inputs , and South Africa has worsening reliability issues with the company (Eskom) that produces the majority (95%) of the ferrochrome industry and country's electricity (the majority of that being dervied from burning coal) (https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/eskom-reform-urgent-to-restore-south-africas-ferrochrome-potential-2019-03-12)

....and what of the environmental costs of production of electricity in China, the largest consumer of chromite ore and producer/user of stainless steel? Surely  Canada can produce electricity for the beneficiation process with a much lower carbon footprint than can China.

Furthermore, what is the current reliance of the USA on imports of chromite ore from the aforementioned countries  (70%+), and what is her current and expected future relationship with those countries given her increasingly isolationist economic policies including import taxes 

All of this to say that that a discussion of the geopolitical importance of Canada being a producer of chromite ore and/or ferrochrome is quite nuanced especially as it relates to the US, and the process of discovering the  potential trove of minerals in the ROF is in its' infancy...