Ring of Fire will be a jobs hot spot

Local News

Project's potential excites NorOnt executive

By Ron Grech, The Daily Press

Updated 13 hours ago

Paul Semple, chief operating officer with Noront Resources, spoke about the potential for jobs and economic spinoffs from the Ring of Fire region within the James Bay Lowlands. He was the guest speaker at the Timmins Chamber of Commerce annual general meeting on Wednesday night. (Ron Grech, QMI Agency, Timmins Daily Press)

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Mining development within the mineral-rich area Ring of Fire will create a fortune in jobs.

How many of those jobs end up in Timmins remains a big question.

"Where do the metals gets processed? That the part that's up in the air," said Paul Semple, chief operating officer of Noront Resources.

His company holds 1,100-square-kilometres of exploration claims within a crescent-shaped area centred around McFaulds Lake in the James Bay Lowlands.

Semple was the keynote speaker at the 61st-annual general meeting of the Timmins Chamber of Commerce Wednesday night.

He spoke optimistically about the future of the project, shared findings from drilling tests, showed designs of underground mining facilities being proposed and explained the types of minerals in the location.

However, the question and answer period that followed, it was clear those in attendance were most keen about potential benefits for Timmins and surrounding communities.

Semple said no one is going to build a new community within the Ring of Fire. Much of the area is covered in water so all of the major processing facilities are going to have located underground. The terrain does not have the required bedrock to support a having concentrator on the surface.

For that reason, he said, the Ring of Fire needs to be viewed as a mining camp which will drawing expertise and labour from Timmins and other communities throughout the North.

"When you're starting with nothing, you're really building a camp," said Semple