http://www.saultstar.com/2017/10/05/romano-visits-ring-of-fire

As Sault MPP Ross Romano is headed to the far north to visit the Ring of Fire area and meet with First Nation communities, the Sault Ste. Marie Economic Development Corp. is keeping its line of communication open Noront Resources.

Romano left Thursday for the far north and is expected to return home Oct. 15.

His plan, which he had talked about during the provincial byelection campaign, was to visit the region, tour the area and learn more about issues facing First Nation communities in the area.

His goals are to tour the area to get a full appreciation of the challenges the provincial government faces to develop the road and how to properly address the relationship with Indigenous communities.

Improving their social issues is just as important as the road to access the mineral deposits, Romano had said, and he is hoping to develop a meaningful private member’s bill to present in the fall that will help improve social issues in the rural North region.

Romano had said earlier this summer that he views the facility as an important job creator and economic booster for Sault Ste. Marie and has been doing his own lobbying for the plant.

Scott Ramsay, Romano’s assistant at Queen’s Park, said Romano will hold a media briefing after he returns to Sault Ste. Marie.

“It’s safe to say he isn’t only meeting on the Ring of Fire, but wants to do his own research to understand the impacts of things in the region and on the First Nation communities,” Ramsay said. “It’s just as much about relationships and relation building.”

Ramsay said Romano has been working on the Ring of Fire issues and, closer to Sault Ste. Marie, the preparation work needed to submit a city bid to become the site of a future ferrochrome facility.

Dan Hollingsworth, executive director of business development at the EDC said Sault Ste. Marie is in constant contact with officials at Noront, sharing information on the company’s plan to establish a ferrochrome facility in Northern Ontario.

Sault Ste. Marie is one of four Northern Ontario cities who will be submitting a request for proposal to establish the estimated $1 billion first-of-its-kind facility in North America. Others include Thunder Bay, Timmins and Sudbury.

Noront Resources, a Canadian-based mining company with the largest land position in the Ring of Fire, has ownership or a controlling interest in all the major discoveries to date in the region.

Hollingsworth said that he anticipates Noront will release the details of the RFP early in the near year.

In the meantime, the EDC will continue to conduct its due diligence and prepare the information it believes will be required in the documentation to attract the facility to Sault Ste. Marie.

“We are still just as much in the race as the other communities,” Hollingsworth said recently.

There has been some suggestion that with Sault Ste. Marie’s major employer, Algoma, still under Companies Creditors Arrangement Ct protection, NorOnt may be leery of banking on available industrial land in that area on the waterfront.

But both the EDC and mayor’s office, have attempted to make assurances to Noront that the parties can create synergies and the term lenders are interested in the opportunity.

Hollingsworth said the ferrochrome facility is still about 10-years out and any lengthy project like that can result in any large parcel of land changing ownership over that period of time, despite checks and balances often put into place.

“It’s not something that knocks the city out of the running,” he said. “We’re going to put our best foot forward and develop a good proposal and we have a lot going for us.”

A ferrochrome facility prepares and transforms the chromite ore deposits to ferrochrome, the product used to create stainless steel products.

Iron, chrome and oxygen are used to create ferrochrome. High-grade chromite ore extracted from the Ring of Fire area is grinded and put through a processing plant that requires high levels of energy to melt the ore and add carbon to separate the oxygen from the iron and chrome.