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Mining Railway, Road and Other Infrastructure

KWG and Chinese engineering group move ahead with RoF rail feasibility study – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – August 23, 2016)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Junior exploration firm KWG Resources has appointed a China-based consulting engineering group to undertake a conditional bankable feasibility study on a proposed railroad from the mineral properties in Ontario’s Ring of Fire (RoF), to a junction with the CN Railroad at Exton, Ontario.

KWG on Monday announced that it has signed a framework strategic cooperation agreement with China Railway First Survey & Design Institute Group (FSDI) to undertake the study. KWG had hosted a delegation of eight railroad engineering specialists from FSDI earlier this year to conduct a reconnaissance visit to review the proposed railroad alignment and the field and design work previously completed by the company.

Under terms of a conditional bankable feasibility study consultation service agreement, the parties have agreed on the deliverables and timetable for FSDI. The study is expected to be complete by year-end.

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EXCLUSIVE: Ring of Fire road study produces inconclusive results about transportation in Ontario’s remote north – by Jody Porter (CBC News Thunder Bay – August 22, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

Report suggests more study needed to determine viability of all-weather access for remote First Nations

A $785,000 study, jointly funded by Canada and Ontario, suggests more study is needed before deciding if an all-weather road should be built in a mineral-rich area known as the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario.

The study was announced in March 2015 at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto and was widely seen as a step towards getting “significant” nickel and chromite deposits out of the muskeg and off to markets.

“Today’s announcement represents our federal government’s latest meaningful contribution to helping the province enhance the economic potential of the Ring of Fire,” Canada’s then-Minister of Natural Resources Conservative Greg Rickford said at the time. But it turns out, the study was never really about mining.

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RING OF FIRE ROAD: Which way? Won’t say (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – August 15, 2016)

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/

A $785,000 study into options for an all-weather route into the Ring of Fire has been completed, but the province — which funded half of the study’s cost — has yet to make it public.

For obvious reasons, the study would be a fascinating read; all of the province’s media would give its findings prominent coverage. Though its development has stalled somewhat, mainly due to depressed metal prices, the future of the Ring of Fire remains a topic of vital importance for the whole country.

Last week, Ontario’s Northern Development and Mines Minister, Michael Gravelle, said the province is reviewing the study, which was overseen by a consortium of four RoF First Nations. It’s appropriate that First Nations are directly involved, since aboriginals are among those who have the most to gain, or lose, by whatever happens in the remote mineral belt about 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.

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Inside the aging lock that is one breakdown away from crippling North America’s economy – by Peter Kuitenbrouwer (Financial Post – July 30, 2016)

http://business.financialpost.com/

SAULT STE. MARIE, MICH. — The dispatch tower above the Soo Locks on a fine July day offers a spectacular view, but there is little time to admire it. There are five telephones and five radios, and at 9 a.m. a radio squawks. “Go ahead, captain,” says Chris Albrough, lockmaster with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“Can I have the upper and lower water levels?” asks someone who turns out to be captain of the M/V Burns Harbor, owned by the American Steamship Co.

“Upper is plus 24 inches, lower is plus 31 inches,” Albrough replies, reading from one of five screens. Translation: the water in Lake Superior today is 24 inches above its mean level, whereas the St. Mary’s River is 31 inches above. He watches as the mammoth bulk carrier ship slips from the Poe Lock into Lake Superior.

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Ring of Fire developer hires rail experts for corridor study – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – July 27, 2016)

http://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

KWG Resources has signed on CANARAIL Consultants to conduct a rail feasibility study for the Ring of Fire and for its development partners, China Railway First Survey & Design Institute.

Quebec-based CANARAIL provides consulting and engineering services for mining and freight railways, and has worked on projects on every major continent. According to KWG, it worked on a feasibility study for a mining railway in northern Quebec under Plan Nord, and has refurbished rail cars in the Rocky Mountaineer fleet.

“CANARAIL benefits from the unique expertise that it has gained in providing similar services to other mining interests either here in Canada or abroad”, said KWG President Frank Smeenk in a July 27 news release.

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Peregrine Diamonds needs a $95M all-weather road – by Jane Sponagle (CBC News North – July 13, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

‘The road in is a critical piece of infrastructure’

A diamond company working on Baffin Island says it could spend 10 years extracting roughly $2.5 billion in net revenue — but first it needs to build a $95 million all-weather road to Iqaluit.

Peregrine Diamonds president and chief executive officer Tom Peregoodoff held a conference call with stakeholders Tuesday to talk about the two kimberlite pipes that make up phase one of the Chidliak diamond project, 120 km northeast of Iqaluit. Peregrine has been exploring at Chidliak since 2005.

But to get the project up and running, the company needs to build a 160 km all-season road from Iqaluit to the site. “The road in is a critical piece of infrastructure and we need that prior to commencement of construction to minimize our construction capital costs,” said Peregoodoff.

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Deadline looms for multimodal transportation input – by Elaine Della-Mattia (Sault Star – July 7, 2016)

http://www.saultstar.com/

Northern Ontario residents are being encouraged to shout out the need for more than just roads to be included in a multimodal transportation study currently underway by the province.

The Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines are developing the strategy for Northern Ontario to develop a blueprint that will set a course for transportation initiatives over the next 25 years.

The initiative is designed to examine improvements for the movement of people and goods throughout the Canadian Shield. The study, led by consultants IBI Group, have already developed a number of draft reports examining transportation requirements or economic development, a geographic and policy context working paper, the effects of transportation on climate change, a socio-economic report and a survey of the needs for commercial vehicles and passengers.

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Nunavut, Kitikmeot Inuit team up to build longest road in Nunavut – by Nick Murray (CBC News North – July 12, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/

Road would begin at Grays Bay and stretch south to the N.W.T.’s diamond mines

A project proposal to build the longest road in Nunavut — a 227 ­kilometre all­-season road from the shores of the Northwest Passage — is moving closer to fruition. On Friday, the Government of Nunavut signed a memorandum of understanding with the Kitikmeot Inuit Association to partner on the project.

The road would connect a proposed deep water port at Grays Bay — on the Northwest Passage between Bathurst Inlet and Kugluktuk — to the winter road that services the N.W.T.’s diamond mines. It’s one of Nunavut’s and the N.W.T’s richest area in minerals.

“The challenge has always been lack of road infrastructure to get the product out,” said Tom Hoefer, the executive director of the N.W.T. and Nunavut Chamber of Mines. “So this is nothing new in the sense of people wanting to get road access in that region.

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GN inks deal with Kitikmeot Inuit to build deep sea port, road (Nunatsiaq News – July 12, 2016)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

Infrastructure will support network of mines in Nunavut’s Izok corridor

Nunavut premier Peter Taptuna celebrated the territory’s annual holiday by signing off on an agreement with Kitikmeot Inuit to develop the first deep-water port and all-weather road in the western Arctic.

Taptuna signed a memorandum of understanding July 9 with Kitikmeot Inuit Association president Stanley Anablak to formalize the two organizations’ cooperation on the Grays Bay Road and Port Project (GBRP).

The massive transportation project includes a deep sea port at Grays Bay — just east of Kugluktuk along the Northwest Passage — and a 227-kilomtre all-weather road south from there linking it to Izok Lake, a well-known zinc-lead mining corridor under exploration.

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Showdown at the Ring: Which route will win out: north-south or east-west? – by Don Wallace (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – June 11, 2016)

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/

With visions of the steely calm of a dusty Burt Lancaster, there now emerges a tense showdown regarding the future (or lack there of) of the Ring of Fire. On the one side we have Noront’s east-west nickel/copper government-paid-for tote road to CNR Savant Lake. On the other is KWG’s, Chinese-built-and-paid-for north-south chromite rail line to CNR Aroland.

As usual the regulator, from whom the two adversaries seek approval, remains in hiding. Consequently, the public, lacking full details of the proposals, can only make guesses based on the public pronouncements by the two proponents.

Beginning with the timing issue, with the east-west road completed with government funds, Noront could commence operation within two years. Whereas KWG chromite production requires north-south rail, which is to be built and paid for by the very experienced Chinese. Nonetheless the wetland route offers some daunting engineering challenges and could take longer.

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Whati road not a subsidy to mining industry, says N.W.T. minister – by Ollie Williams (CBC News North – June 09, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

The N.W.T. government denies a proposed all-weather road from Behchoko to Whati is a simple “subsidy to the mining industry.”

Fortune Minerals wants to mine for cobalt, bismuth and other minerals at a site almost 50 kilometres north of Whati. The company says an all-weather road from Whati to the existing highway network is critical to the mine going ahead, and has asked the territory to look at building one.

The territory believes the road is worthwhile and will cost around $150 million. Federal funding to help meet that cost has not yet arrived, but the project remains listed in the 2016-17 business plan for the N.W.T. Department of Transportation.

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Noront open to KWG’s idea of rail into Ring of Fire – by Alan S. Hale (Timmins Daily Press – June 4, 2016)

http://www.timminspress.com/

TIMMINS – A few dozen people gathered in the ballroom of the McIntyre Arena on Thursday for the Billions in the Ground investment seminar on Thursday. The seminar was part of the Big Event Canadian Mine Expo’s new focus on attracting investors for new mining projects to the trade show.

During the seminar, there were presentations made by several mining industry companies about their plans for the future and investment potential, backed up by reams of statistics, geological surveys and share price histories.

But the presentation that elicited the most curiosity and questions from the group of people at the seminar was that of Noront Resources chief executive officer, Alan Coutts. The topic was the Ring of Fire and the reasons why starting development of the Ring of Fire is taking so long.

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New road needed in Fort Mac rebuild (Sudbury Star – June 3, 2016)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Postmedia Network – There is a mountain of post-wildfire rebuilding ahead for Fort McMurray. But at least one change should be added: road access into and around this important northern city.

Fort McMurray’s geography has been part of the wildfire story since the May 3 evacuation. The reality of a city designed with one road in and out — Highway 63 — meant evacuees funnelled either south through the fire or north to the shelter of oilsands facilities. Going north meant residents were safe from the immediate danger of the fire, but they were also stranded.

Now is the time for the federal, provincial and local governments to hash out a real plan to correct the oversight and answer the long-standing community call for an additional road into, or at least around, Fort McMurray. One option is a project called the East Clearwater Multi-Use Access Road, a 30-kilometre ring road primarily aimed at keeping heavy trucks off Highway 63, which cuts through the heart of Fort McMurray.

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Development restrictions around old mine site ‘unacceptable,’ says Pickle Lake mayor (CBC News Thunder Bay – May 31, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

The mayor of Pickle Lake, Ont., says the future of his town is being threatened by development restrictions imposed by the province, related to an abandoned mine site. Development has long been restricted in some areas because of contaminated tailings containing arsenic, left behind by the Central Patricia Mine, which closed in the early 50s, said Mayor Karl Hopf.

But the draft of a new official plan for the township would further block new development within a thousand metres of a mine headframe (the structure built above a mine shaft), he said.

“Now, the old headframe from 1952 is roughly 50 metres off our main highway corridor that goes to our commercial and industrial area,” he said, adding that about 700 acres of land could be included, and the province would also put further conditions on development on land bordering the restricted area.

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Northern Corridor Could Boost Canada’s Potential – by Hannah Hoag (News Deeply.com – May 31, 2016)

https://www.newsdeeply.com/

A vast pathway connecting roads, rail, pipelines, power and communications across northern Canada could bring huge benefits in trade and quality of life, says a new study. We spoke to one of its authors.

TORONTO – A corridor running for 7,000km (4,375 miles) through northern Canada could link communities, trade and natural resources with markets in the south and overseas, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.

The report calls for the creation of a right-of-way – a route agreed in advance by stakeholders, including governments, private landowners and indigenous groups. Taking this approach, instead of evaluating and approving infrastructure projects on a piecemeal basis, would be more efficient and less costly, the authors argue.

Under the proposal, pipelines, railways, roads and electrical transmission lines would stretch from sea-to-sea-to-sea, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic with the Beaufort Sea, Hudson Bay and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

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