By Carol Mulligan, Sudbury Star

Saturday, August 30, 2014 1:03:35 EDT AM

Maurice (Moe) Lavigne, for one, is eager to get going on that.

The vice-president of exploration and development for KWG Resources Inc., has ideas for what the development corporation should do first when it is up and fully running.

Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle announced Thursday it would start with an interim board of public servants and "transition" to a more mature board of partner members from first nations, industry and governments.

Some were critical that is taking too long to happen.

"In my biggest fantasy, I would have liked to have seen the Ontario government start that particular process five years ago, but they didn't," said Lavigne on Thursday.

Still he considered the official establishment this week of the "devco" — headquartered in Thunder Bay — a step forward.

Planning the infrastructure to support development in the Ring of Fire chromite deposits, an undeveloped area of the province located 540 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, is something new for just about everyone.

"All mining camps kind of developed as individual mines and villages popped up all over the place, like Sudbury for example. It was just a real ad-hoc affair and mining companies were in control," Lavigne said this week.

"Here's a situation where we know we're going to have a mining camp, as opposed to just a single mine, and we actually have an opportunity to design it."

That's where the vision needs to come in, and it will likely have to come from the development corporation.

To underpin that vision, said Lavigne, board members will have to do studies of a number of issues.

Start with discussions with First Nations near the Ring of Fire about "what they want out of this deal."

Those discussions have been taking place and are to move into another phase before the "mature board" of permanent members of the development corporation is established.

Gravelle said Thursday those talks will continue between Frank Iacobucci, representing the Government of Ontario, and Bob Rae, representing the Matawa Council chiefs, building upon the historic regional framework agreement settled by the two sides earlier this year.

In Sudbury this week, Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford cited one of the key challenges for the Ontario Liberal government in moving forward on developing the Ring of Fire as settling agreements with First Nations on revenue sharing.

The road-rail-pipeline conversation will have to be had by the corporation, said Lavigne. His company has proposed and costed out a rail option to move ore and people in and out of the Ring of Fire.

It staked claims on the natural esters upon which Cleveland-based Cliffs Natural Resources wanted to build its preferred north-south all seasons road. That ended in a legal squabble in which Cliffs sought an easement over KWG's claims first from the Ministry of Natural Resources, then from the Ontario Mining and Lands Commissioner.

The commissioner denied Cliffs' easement application, Cliffs appealed and Divisional Court referred the matter to Natural Resources Minister Bill Mauro to finally decide the matter.

Meanwhile, Cliffs has essentially mothballed its Ring of Fire mine project.

Lavigne actually sees a combination railway and road system as making the most sense for the Ring of Fire transportation wise now.

Another issue that should be discussed by the development corporation, said Lavigne, is how different mining companies with claims in the Ring of Fire can exploit their synergies.

"Let's avoid having an Inco-Falconbridge situation," he said of the companies now owned by Vale and Glencore, "where the obvious synergies were never captured and, at the end of the day, the companies fell in the hands of foreign owners."

KWG Resources has a 30% interest in the Big Daddy chromite deposit in the Ring of Fire and the right to earn 80% of the Black Horse chromite deposit where resources are being defined.

KWG also owns 100% of Canada Chrome Corporation, the company that staked claims and conducted a $15-million surveying and soil testing program for the engineering and construction of a railroad to the Ring of Fire from Exton, Ont.

carol.mulligan@sunmedia.ca