The Ring of Fire development, which is located approximately 575 kilometers north of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, is expected to generate a large amount of minerals, including nickel, copper, and chromite, once the operation is up and running. However, the project has been held up because of a lack of road access to the location but this past summer Premier Kathleen Wynn announced that the provincial government is now prepared to work with some of the nearby communities to develop year-round access to the mineral-rich area. Several of the near by communities, including Marten Falls, Webequie and Nibinamik, already have road proposals in place.
Noront President and CEO Alan Coutts has commented, “So there’s two road proposals that are being advanced,” Coutts said, “the north-south road that’s being advanced by Marten Falls and Aroland, and the south-west road that’s being advanced by Nibinamik and by Webequie.”
Coutts furthered that when a mining project begins the company is often the proponent of the road development. However, in this case, the province has asked the communities themselves to be the proponents, which means they’ll be “deciding themselves what the road looks like, where it goes…and they will be doing the environmental assessments themselves,” he said.
He also said a project description that shows the details of where the roads will be placed will be released in the beginning of 2018 and “shovel’s [will be] in the ground within that period,” which means Noront will then finally be able to talk to investors to start financing the big project.