The Ring of Fire moved a rung closer to reality Monday, as the province announced plans to construct a year-round access road to the mineral-rich region.

"It's just what we were looking for," said Alan Coutts, president and CEO of Noront Resources. "This is the catalyst that was needed, from our point of view."

A Toronto-based company, Noront is the now chief player in the region, after acquiring the chromite assets from Cliffs Natural Resources a couple of years ago.

It plans to develop its Eagle's Nest deposit -- consisting of nickel, copper, platinum and palladium -- first, and then mine chromite deposits at several sites in the James Bay lowlands.

"These are bulk and base-metal deposits," said Coutts. "They're not gold and diamonds in small volumes; they're big volumes and you have to move a lot. Without 24/7, 365, all-season infrastructure roads in place, those projects aren't viable."

The province had been negotiating with nine First Nations in the region and hinting since spring that a deal on road construction was in the offing.

Speaking in Sudbury in late May, Premier Kathleen Wynne said an announcement on infrastructure was due "within weeks, not months."

On Monday, Wynne was in Thunder Bay, along with Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle, to unveil the province's plan to fund two road projects creating access to the Ring of Fire.

One will be an east-west road linking the fly-in First Nation communities of Webequie and Nibinamik to an existing highway north of Pickle Lake, and the other a north-south conduit connecting Marten Falls First Nation to the provincial highway network.

While no exact figure was attached to the projects, the government said the move is part of a $1-billion commitment made earlier to develop infrastructure in the remote part of the province.

Coutts said it was essential to his company's efforts to "get clarity on the roads," as Noront can now raise capital to move its Eagle's Nest mine forward.

"We need about $7 million to develop that project," he said. "What this allows us to do is go to equity markets and say, 'Hey, we've got some certainty on this.' Now this is financeable."

Trading of Noront stock was put on hold during the announcement Monday, but when it reopened around 11:30 a.m., there was a dramatic spike, with shares jumping 8.5 cents.

"When we un-halted it, there was quickly four million shares traded," said the Noront CEO. "We've had a lot of shareholders with us for a long time, showing a great deal of patience, so as soon as you see a major roadblock pushed over, you see people flooding in."

The development is good news for Sudbury, said Coutts, as the plan is to have concentrate from the Eagle's Nest site processed at local smelters.

"We're going to have to negotiate treatment terms with one of the two smelters there, but it's hard to see it going beyond there," he said. "It's the logical place and it's what our working expectation is."

He said his organization has been dialoguing with both Vale and Glencore and "our understanding is there's a need for concentrate coming up in the next decade, so we need to be able to feed that to smelters that are hungry for it."

In the meantime, the confidence generated by the roads announcement means Noront "can finish off the engineering work and environmental assessments we need to do, get the permits, and start the construction phase."

Construction at Eagle's Nest, which features a "small but high-grade deposit," would take three years, he said, and it will be five years before "you see any concentrate leaving that area and heading toward Sudbury."

Mining of chromite for the stainless steel industry will come later, but stands to be very lucrative and last for decades, said Coutts. "We've got four of the best chromite projects in the world there."

At the moment, however, there no ferrochrome processing plants in North America, so the company is looking at building a smelter for the ore.

Sudbury remains in the running to host such a facility, said Coutts, along with Timmins and Thunder Bay.

"There are advantages and disadvantages to all the communities, whether it's proximity or experience," he said. "Sudbury and Timmins, for instance, are smelter towns, so they know exactly what a smelter is and have the workforce to run a smelter."

The east-west road announced Monday will support the Eagle's Nest project, but if chromite development picks up, "moving to a north-south corridor makes a lot of sense," said Coutts. "So there's good optionality in what the province has put forward, because the road to Marten Falls could be extended to the Ring of Fire and act as that industrial road to support the chromite operations."

Ontario has said it will fund the projects regardless of contributions from other jurisdictions, but Coutts said he expects the federal government "will come and help with this overall development, especially now that it's being First Nation-led."

He said development of the resource has lagged largely because it took a while for the various interests to condense and coalesce.

"When everything got simplified down a bit, it became easier," he said. "There used to be a whole bunch of industry players, and most of them left, so we bought them out. So we sort of consolidated that and there was one industry voice."

The province, meanwhile, decided "we aren't going to wait for the feds," he said. And the "key communities" among the First Nation presence in the area "decided to take leadership" rather than have nine voices at the table.

While Noront won't be contributing directly to the infrastructure projects, the company is "kicking in" engineering and environmental assessment work it has carried out on both corridors, he said, and "we'll talk about a usage agreement for using the roads."

The Wynne government said environmental assessments for both road projects will get under way by January, with actual construction expected to begin in 2019.

Opposition leaders expressed skepticism about the plan, however, arguing the province has dithered to date and can't be trusted to follow through in a timely manner on the Ring of Fire.

"Unfortunately, since its discovery in 2007, it has not been a priority for the Liberals," said PC leader Patrick Brown in a statement. "They are only in the North now because we are a year away from an election."

He said any promise Wynne makes now she is likely to "break if she wins again."

NDP leader Andrea Horwath, meanwhile, said the deal only includes three First Nations and ignores six others in the region.

She also pointed out the most recent budget tabled by the Wynne government failed to include "any mention, nor a single dollar, to move the project forward."

jmoodie@postmedia.com

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