Band sets up for chromite action

April 28th, 2010
Additional hydro stations soon to be switched on in Greenstone could greatly improve Ginoogaming First Nation's bid to become a main processing centre for a future Ring of Fire chromite mine, says the band's economic development adviser.
"Our intent is there," Adolph Rasevych declared Tuesday.
"We have the location, we have 27 square miles of land, and we have ready access to the (CN) railway. Our only drawback is (an industrial-load) power source."
Ginoogaming, home to about 200 Ojibwa, is connected to the provincial hydro grid.
But Rasevych said the amount of energy needed to fire up an electric furnace used to process chromite would far exceed the amount of juice currently available to the reserve and nearby Longlac.
More power could become available if Ginoogaming could tap into a new, 240,000-volt hydro corridor being propsosed just east of Lake Nipigon, along with two hydro stations just northeast of the big lake.
The two Little Jackfish River stations are expected to generate about 100 megawatts combined for Ontario Power Generation.
Cliffs Natural Resources, based in Cleveland, Ohio, is seen as the company that will ultimately build the chromite mine about 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.
Chromite is a key ingredient in stainless steel.
A new 300-kilometre rail line will be required to bring the material from the remote North down to the CN Rail line in Nakina.
Existing mining centres in Sudbury and Timmins have made it known that they would be best positioned to process the chromite.
Rasevych said that in his view, it would be more economical to process the ore in Ginoogaming, because waste rock could then be shipped back to the mine at a shorter distance. The waste would be used for fill.