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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.

Noront, which made nickel, copper, platinum and palladium discoveries in the region in 2007, is now the major claims holder in the area. The company has invested approximately $65 million in exploration to date within the Ring of Fire.

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

Noront's goal is to goal is to get the nickel-copper mining operation up and running first.

"We're currently four months into a 12-month feasibility project," said Semple.

Asked by one of the members in the audience what timeframe he is looking at for startup of operations, Semple said they're looking at at copper-nickel production beginning in 2016. That would include a two-year permitting process.

That would be tentatively be followed by the startup of chromite production in 2020.

Semple said getting chromite operations off the ground pose a greater challenge, he said, it requires more extensive infrastructure, namely a greater power supply.

Semple has worked 26 years in the mining industry, with much of that focused on feasibility studies, project development and operations of previous and base metals deposits.