Corina Moore knows it’s not happening now but the Ontario Northland CEO is excited about the potential the Ring of Fire has for the crown corporation.
“It would be the 50 years sustainability for Ontario Northland,” said Moore during a luncheon at the Canadian Club meeting at the Best Western last week.
“It is a very huge opportunity. It is a number of years out and there are lots of different other mining opportunities that are closer in turn that we are working with.”
Moore says NORONT, which has the rights to the Ring of Fire, has received tenders from Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins, Sudbury and Thunder Bay.
“So those tenders from those 4 communities are going into NORONT on January 31st,” stated Moore.
“And they will be making a determination of which community will have that smelter. What that means is initially things will be trucked from the Rink of Fire site to this Ferrochrome smelter and will go out to the North American market to supply the product,” added Moore speaking of the first step in the process.
As part of step two, Moore believes with the right amount of demand for the product, it would make sense for a rail line required from the Ring of Fire site down to connect to Ontario Northland or one of the other railways.
“What we have always said that we know exactly how to run a railway like that, we know how to run a rail line on that type of muskeg and that type of terrain and geography,” noted Moore.
“We have a traffic control centre in Engelhart that could easily be expanded to support that type of thing so we really see the evolution of the Ring of Fire.”
Moore believes the smelter coming to Timmins would be the ideal location for Ontario Northland.
“The Ring of Fire is certainly a huge opportunity for Ontario Northland so certainly if the Ferrochrome site is in Timmins it is right on our rail line and would be in the Glencore site so when that end of life mine goes to zero in 2021, then that smelter would come in and take that place,” she said.
