Mr. Beveridge says "There is no shortage of supply – South Africa is the world’s largest supplier and can mine at cheaper prices than Canada".

Clearly, he does not understand the issues. South Africa has ample [strategic] supply in the ground but the ore is not in a constrained area. The cost to get it out of the ground is much higher than that of the ROF.

Black Horse in a very constrained area. Plus KWG's natural gas reactor 50% savings over Primus SAF and slurry pipeline $4/t ROF to Nakina transport. Sorel's electrical rates trump SF electrical rates. Add in the eco footprint of buried pipelines and no chance of Chromium(VI) occurrence at those reduced temperatures during direct reactor reduction or transport.



Stephen Harper has recently said the Kathleen Wynne's Ontario government should focus less on “confrontation” and more on getting its fiscal house in order.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dave Chidley

John Ivison: Harper-Wynne meeting a ‘good discussion,’ but not end of their cold war

National Post
By: John Ivison
January 8, 2015

The late unpleasantness between Kathleen Wynne and Stephen Harper may appear to have been resolved by their meeting last Monday in Toronto.

But, behind the scenes, all is not well and hostilities may be resumed when the Ontario Premier travels to Ottawa to speak on the state of the federation at a Canada 2020 conference on January 20.

The suspicion at Queen’s Park is that the Prime Minister met Ms. Wynne simply to buy some peace and shut down a source of relentless criticism.

The Premier had previously bemoaned the fact that Mr. Harper had refused to meet with her in 2014.

In her media availability following the pre-hockey game summit, she called the meeting a “positive step forward” and refrained from the kind of megaphone diplomacy that has characterized their relationship to this point.

But it is understood that the Premier expects to see some concrete results emerging from the coversation and that if those don’t materialize, she will go back on the offensive.

The catalyst for a new cold war is likely to be the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario.

Ms. Wynne said that she and Mr. Harper had a “good discussion” over the mineral deposit project and the provincial request for $1-billion in federal funding to match the provincial government’s planned investment. “Federal support will help move forward this important project, which will create jobs, provide opportunities for First Nations communities and provide economic benefits well beyond our province,” she said.

The federal government seems markedly less thrilled about handing over $1-billion to a development corporation run by Ontario bureaucrats.

Ottawa says it needs detailed plans from Ontario, including tangible, fully costed proposals for infrastructure. Senior Conservatives say there has been no formal invitation to participate in the development corporation.

Ontario Liberals say the devco is not designed to be a solely provincial initiative and the feds need to get involved to pull the project together, alongside business, First Nations and interested communities. “It’s disingenuous for them to say they expect a ‘proposal’,” said one provincial official.

Ottawa says it agrees that infrastructure “building blocks” like roads and bridges need to be in place to foster private investment. But the suspicion is that Natural Resources Minister, Greg Rickford, is skeptical about the viability of the whole project and is merely trying to pacify the Wynne government.

Last month, he talked of “serious structural problems” and said Ottawa is cautious about partnering the province in building roads and power lines.

The federal government’s reservations about partnering with a province that has some history when it comes to wasting taxpayers’ money, looks prescient.

Mark Beveridge is a senior consultant for global commodities research firm CRU Group in London. He said the prospects for the Ring of Fire are bleak, particularly after the main private sector driver behind the project – Cleveland-based Cliffs Natural Resources – pulled out.

The Ring of Fire was supposed to be a $60-billion store of chromite (a mineral used to strengthen steel) that would rival the oilsands as a source of resource wealth. It is located in a 5,000 square crescent 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.

However, prices that peaked at around $350US per metric tonne in 2008 have slumped to around $155US.

There is no shortage of supply – South Africa is the world’s largest supplier and can mine at cheaper prices than Canada – while demand has slipped as growth in China has slowed. “This does not necessarily look like an attractive investment in the short term,” said Mr. Beveridge. “For a new entrant into that market in the short term, it’s just not feasible.”

He said government investment in infrastructure is important but the project needs a private sector investor in the form of a big mining company. “I wouldn’t write it off entirely – there is a better future – but it’s some ways off.”

Even that is a more optimistic assessment than the one offered by Cliffs’ chief executive, Lourenco Goncalves, who said the project was “beyond the point of no return” and would never be developed in his lifetime.

Yet the Ontario government is determined to plough on regardless, spending a billion dollars on all-season road access, even if there is no mine.

Clearly, the Ring of Fire has the potential to be the “extraordinary economic development opportunity” that Ontario’s minister of Northern Development and Mines, Michael Gravelle, claims it to be.

But projects like Ring of Fire don’t happen just because governments wish them to.

There needs to be a sound economic case for investing this much public money.

It’s apparent the feds don’t think there is one. And it’s equally clear that when Ms. Wynne comes to the capital later this month, she is not going to take Ottawa’s transparent stalling tactics for an answer.

John Ivison: Harper-Wynne meeting a ‘good discussion,’ but not end of their cold war

National Post
By: John Ivison
January 8, 2015