Wyloo plans to build nickel mine in next five years, stoking renewed debate about reconciliation with Indigenous peoples
In the last days of December, Australia’s Wyloo Metals Ltd. offered $617 million in cash to buy Noront Resources Ltd., ending a bidding war with fellow Australian mining giant BHP Group, and emerging as the presumptive new owner of the collection of mineral claims in Ontario’s James Bay Lowlands known as the Ring of Fire.
The deal, expected to close in the next few months, leads to at least one major question: What happens next in the Ring of Fire? Cut off from the rest of Ontario, the project would require more than $1 billion of taxpayer investment in roads and infrastructure.