May 19 (Reuters) – South Africa’s rail freight problems mean Tharisa Plc (THST.L) has to truck 85% of its chrome export volumes to ports, the diversified miner’s CEO Phoevos Pouroulis said on Friday, adding he saw no prospect of a swift solution.
State-owned logistics utility Transnet is failing to meet demand for freight rail services because of a shortage of locomotives and spare parts, as well as cable theft and vandalism of its infrastructure.
CEOs have realised that running the country cannot be left to the ANC
Business leaders were ecstatic when Cyril Ramaphosa became South Africa’s president in 2018. Here was one of their own: a pragmatic tycoon to fix the incompetent kleptocracy of Jacob Zuma. Yet five years on, those running large businesses are exasperated.
Bosses from several different industries—such as Neal Froneman of Sibanye-Stillwater, a mining company; Daniel Mminele, the incoming chair of Nedbank; and Ralph Mupita, of mtn, a telecoms firm—have sounded the alarm. Could South Africa become a failed state?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/
Wyloo Metals, which owns majority of known claims in area, estimates value of ‘defined ore bodies’ at $90B
From the time the Ring of Fire was discovered in 2007, politicians and industry leaders have emphasized the potential economic value of the remote, mineral-rich area in northern Ontario. That has intensified in recent weeks, with Ontario Mines Minister George Pirie saying recently: “Anecdotally, mining people are saying this is a trillion-dollar project.”
Pirie told Global News in a recent documentary that the $1-trillion amount was “not a formal valuation,” but was “based on the increased value of critical minerals that are already established being in the ground.”
To purchase Ring of Fire book: https://www.amazon.ca/Ring-Fire-High-Stakes-Lowlands-Wilderness/dp/1770416749
Consider the major collisions of contemporary life in North America: the tensions between financial investments and social ideals; the threat of climate change in conflict with the thirst for energy sources; the rights of Indigenous people versus the prerogatives of elected governments; the rivalries with trading partners in competition with the hunger for goods from abroad; and the impulses of the regulatory state in full combat with the appeal of free markets.
Then consider that all of these clashes — the stuff of debate in Ottawa and provincial capitals, the topics of animated conversation in universities and coffee shops across the country — are playing out, every one of them and all at once, in a remote 5,000-square-kilometre swath of northern Canada. It’s a place that’s home to the second-largest temperate wetland in the world, that’s packed with nickel and copper, and that’s known as the Ring of Fire.
A new leadership team including new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Kristan Straub, and Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Annie Sismanian, has been appointed at Ring of Fire Metals, bringing with them decades of mining industry experience at a critical time in the company’s history.
The new appointments follow the recruitment of Stephen Crozier, Vice President Sustainability in August last year and long-standing employee Glenn Nolan’s transition to the newly created role of Vice President Indigenous Enterprises. Ryan Weston continues as part of the leadership team in the role of Vice President Exploration.
Internal emails obtained by The Narwhal appear to show a shift in relations between the two governments on the Ring of Fire. But some First Nations leaders say they’re still being left out
After a years-long stalemate over the far northern Ring of Fire, the federal government appears to have extended an olive branch to Ontario, resuming talks over the region’s future.
The province has asked with increasing impatience for the federal government to chip in about $1 billion for a road to the remote and environmentally-sensitive Ring of Fire region, 540 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, Ont. — a move that could enable mining there.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Ring of Fire Metals CEO Steve Flewelling seeks balanced, faster approach to advance Far North nickel project
Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson wants to avoid government duplication with the provinces in regulations and permitting in order to bring new critical mineral mines into production quicker. So does Ring of Fire Metals CEO Steve Flewelling.
But when it comes to proposed mine development in the James Bay region, Wilkinson insisted last month that no shortcuts will be taken in safeguarding the environment, protecting fragile peatlands, and in respecting the rights of Indigenous people and communities near any proposed mine site.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/
‘One thing I can say for sure is we are committed to placing that facility in northern Ontario’
While Sault Ste. Marie was identified in 2019 as the preferred site for a ferrochrome facility, Ring of Fire Metals, which owns several of the mineral deposits about 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, says its still considering its options.
We first heard the words ‘Ring of Fire,’ connected to mining back in 2010. Now, 13 years later, the project hasn’t made much progress and has instead been marked by delays. The company that owns several of the mineral deposits northeast of Thunder Bay is now called Ring of Fire Metals.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
CEO of Ring of Fire Metals also says mineral-rich area contains minerals coveted for the growing electric vehicle market
While chromite for the steel industry has been a major focus of developing the Ring of Fire in the province’s far north, the area is also rich in other minerals coveted for the growing electric vehicle market.
“We’re a firm believer that the Ring of Fire hosts multiple nickel deposits, not unlike Sudbury,” said Stephen Flewelling, CEO of Ring of Fire Metals, in a virtual presentation to a Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Thursday.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
However, unjustified opposition from environmentalists, complicated First Nations politics and incompetent provincial bureaucrats stand in the way
The isolated, nickel-rich Ring of Fire, located 550 km northeast of Thunder Bay, is the centerpiece of Ontario’s Critical Mineral Strategy. Discovered in 2007, this developing mining camp is going to save southern Ontario’s auto sector.
Automobiles and associated parts are Ontario’s largest exports and second largest nationally, after the oil sector. Over the past century, hundreds of thousands of middle-class jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in manufacturing activity have established the province as Canada’s economic powerhouse.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
We must provide the West with sustainably sourced critical minerals to stop global warming
In 2014, after spending about $550 million to buy, further explore and develop their Ring of Fire properties, Cliffs Natural Resources left the province in disgust due to the inability of both levels of government to build a road into the camp.
They sold their project at a steep discount to Noront Exploration (now Ring of Fire Metals) for around $27 million. Have the federal and provincial ministries of environment not learned a painful lesson from that ordeal? We got a second chance when Wyloo Metals – which has enormous financial clout — bought Noront and yet I fear we are blowing it again.
LOGAR, Afghanistan — Somewhere in the Logar mountains, overlooking the highway to Kabul, Asadullah Massoud trudged up to a four-story-tall cleft. Before him was a monochromatic pattern of gray stone, save for a seam of dull, almost-black rocks. “Look there. See that black line?” he said. “That’s chromite.”
An explosion thumped in the distance. Massoud looked up, but appeared unconcerned. “That’s not fighting. We’re mining with the open-surface method, putting explosives and going from hill to hill,” he said.
A new company name, a new political landscape, and a new Ontario Mines Minister have all come together as momentum continues to build swiftly around efforts to develop the multi-billion-dollar Ring of Fire region of Northern Ontario.
Stephen Flewelling, CEO of Ring of Fire Metals, recently rebranded from Noront Resources , gave an update of the projects in the Ring of Fire at the Central Canada Resource Expo conference in Thunder Bay. Flewelling talked about recent changes that are happening and what the future looks like.
“It was nice to emerge from the fog we’d been in due to COVID in in the last two and a half years”, stated Moe Lavigne, Vice President of Exploration and Development for KWG Resources while opening his presentation during the CEN CAN Expo in Thunder Bay in September 2022. Moe was invited to bring the audience up to speed on where KWG is and where they are going in the Ring of Fire mining region.
KWG Resources primary chromite holdings are located on several parcels of land in the Koper-McFaulds Lake area, one of the most dynamic parcels located in the Ring of Fire. Its most hopeful property is the Black Horse Project. This past October, KWG bought the property they had under option which contains its largest chromite resource, the Black Horse property.
LOGAR, Afghanistan — Somewhere in the Logar Mountains, overlooking the highway to Kabul, Asadullah Massoud trudged up to a four-story-tall cleft. Before him was a monochromatic pattern of gray stone, save for a seam of dull, almost-black rocks. “Look there. See that black line?” he said. “That’s chromite.”
An explosion thumped in the distance. Massoud looked up at the sound, but appeared unconcerned. That’s not fighting. We’re mining with the open-surface method, putting explosives and going from hill to hill,” he said.
