The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
A plan to open a chromite mine in northwestern Ontario and ship the ore to a Capreol plant for processing has been put on hold, along with hundreds of new jobs the development would have created.
On Tuesday, Cliffs Natural Resources announced it will suspend indefinitely its activities in the Ring of Fire by the end of the fourth quarter of 2013.
“As we’ve assessed the current challenges in the region and the costs to continue on the current path, we decided to suspend the chromite project indefinitely,” Bill Boor, senior VP of strategy and business development, said in a release. “Unfortunately, we will reduce the project team staffing, and close our Thunder Bay and Toronto offices, as well as the exploration camp site.”
Cliffs has determined “it will not allocate additional capital for the project given the uncertain timeline and risks associated with the development of necessary infrastructure to bring this project online,” according to its statement.
In June, the company suspended environmental assessments and in October, it announced it was planning to appeal a decision by the Mining and Lands Commissioner, who had dismissed its application to build an all-weather road through land staked by Montreal-based KWG Resources Inc.