RoF access route land squabble headed to Court of Appeal

28th January 2015 By: Henry Lazenby

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Prospective Ring of Fire (RoF) miners KWG Resources and Cliffs Natural Resources have been given the green light to take their quarrel over the right of way over an isthmus, narrow strip of land, connecting the remote Northern Ontario mining camp with the outside world to the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

KWG reported on Tuesday that its subsidiary Canada Chrome Corporation (CCC) had received an order of the Court of Appeal granting leave to appeal the decision of the Divisional Court of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice released July 30 last year, which ruled that CCC's consent should be waived in an application for an easement to build a road over its mining claims.

KWG, through CCC, controls the key transportation route on land, which it acquired through claim staking in 2009. KWG had proposed a rail route connecting to the Canadian National transcontinental rail line at the Exton rail siding to transport ore to consumers, competing with its US-based joint venture partner Cliffs, which had proposed an all-weather road south connecting to the same rail line west of Exton. Cliffs’ plan was to transport chromite concentrate by rail to Capreol, in the Sudbury area, where it planned to build a ferrochrome production facility.

KWG explained that CCC was now expected to file its notice of appeal by January 30, after which it would have a further 30-day opportunity to perfect its appeal.

The respondent, a Cliffs subsidiary, would then be able to file its responding factum and compendium 60 days thereafter.

A date for the hearing of the appeal, by a three-judge panel would then be assigned. The hearing date was expected to be fixed for early summer, KWG stated.

"We are very gratified that this issue will be revisited by the Ontario Court of Appeal. Many of our exploration industry professionals were left wondering how to protect their investors' interests if claim staking was no longer to be available for the exclusive exploitation of a discovery. We look forward to the Court of Appeal clarifying this issue, which goes to the root of Canada's world-renowned mining laws and exploration industry leadership,” KWG president Frank Smeenk noted.

While KWG continued exploration on its Koper Lake and Big Daddy chromite projects in the RoF, Cliffs in 2013 announced that it would indefinitely suspend its $3.3-billion Black Thor chromite project, citing the uncertain timeline and risks associated with developing the necessary infrastructure to bring the project on line.