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TORONTO – Ontario announced a $3.3-billion investment by an American mining company Wednesday to develop the Ring of Fire, a huge mineral deposit near James Bay, but faces opposition from some First Nations, local communities and environmentalists.
Cliffs Natural Resources plans to build a chromite mine, a road to the area about 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay and a processing facility near Sudbury, said Northern Development and Mines Minister Rick Bartolucci.
The Ring of Fire includes the largest chromite deposit ever discovered in North America. The $1.8-billion proposed smelter in Capreol would create about 900 jobs, including 450 when it’s in operation by 2015, and would process the chromite into a key component of stainless steel, Bartolucci said in Sudbury.
“There was stiff competition with other jurisdictions for the location of this smelter and those jurisdictions were outside the province of Ontario,” he said.