"You have to put mining in perspective," Harquail said in response to a question about the Ring of Fire from The Sudbury Star after the Laurentian news event. "We talk about (mining) in eons, geological eras, and the Ring of Fire is really ... less than eight years ago, in terms of the whole thing coming together," he said.

When developing base metal deposits, a number of factors have to come together -- financing, market need, the commodity cycle.

"Right now, we're in a low ebb, it's going to be really hard. Even if the governments were totally behind it, industry right now would probably not be able to finance it," he said of the Ring of Fire's chromite, nickel and other metal deposits.

To move development of the Ring forward, government, first nations and industry must be involved in discussions "so when the commodity cycle is back up, then we can have all the agreements together."

Harquail said his company in involved with deposits discovered in 1963 that are still a couple of years away from production.

That has nothing to do with barriers. "It's just the commodity cycle itself. There's a time and a window for all these things," he said.

"We're building things for multi-generations," he said of the Ring of Fire properties.

Harquail agrees with some observers who say the time to build mines is when commodity prices are low, to be ready to reap the benefits when prices rise, but it's not that simple.

"You can't get people to finance them. That's the problem," he said.

If they do, "they're just getting more short-term oriented."

http://www.thesudburystar.com/2016/09/08/ring-fire-will-happen-ceo