https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/
Timmins mayor vows to push for facility, though company wants to build in Sault Ste. Marie
The head of a company planning to build a ferrochrome smelter in Sault Ste. Marie says he’s confident the project will move forward as planned.
On Tuesday, Noront Resources announced it will build its smelter to process ore from the Ring of Fire in Sault Ste. Marie. The company had narrowed down two locations for the project: Timmins and Sault Ste. Marie. In response to the announcement, the mayor of Timmins stated “it’s not over until it’s over.”
“We know it will be a number of years before any facilities are built,” George Pirie said. “We think that we’ll have time to affect the decision. We don’t think Noront will be the company that builds the facility. They don’t have deep enough pockets required to build it and will have to bring in a bigger partner.”
Noront Resources purchased the land claims for the Ring of Fire project from Cliffs Natural Resources in 2015. Previously, Cliffs announced it was planning on building its smelter in Capreol in Greater Sudbury.
Al Coutts, president and CEO Of Noront Resources says a lot has changed since that announcement in 2012. “It’s the same plan going forward [but] we just chose a different location for the ferrochrome plant because we thought that the Capreol plant was too expensive,” he said.
For the rest of this article and radio interview: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/noront-smelter-reax-1.512763