Noront Resources

http://www.timminspress.com/2016/06/03/noront-open-to-kwgs-idea-of-rail-into-ring-of-fire

Noront open to KWG's idea of rail into Ring of Fire

By Alan S. Hale, The Daily Press

Friday, June 3, 2016 9:56:53 EDT PM

Alan Coutts, chief executive officer of Noront which is a major shareholder within the mineral-rich Ring of Fire region of the James Bay lowlands, addresses a group of mining industry business people at the Billions in the Ground investment seminar which was held during the Big Event Mining Expo in Timmins on Thursday.

TIMMINS - A few dozen people gathered in the ballroom of the McIntyre Arena on Thursday for the Billions in the Ground investment seminar on Thursday.

The seminar was part of the Big Event Canadian Mine Expo’s new focus on attracting investors for new mining projects to the trade show.

During the seminar, there were presentations made by several mining industry companies about their plans for the future and investment potential, backed up by reams of statistics, geological surveys and share price histories.

But the presentation that elicited the most curiosity and questions from the group of people at the seminar was that of Noront Resources chief executive officer, Alan Coutts.

The topic was the Ring of Fire and the reasons why starting development of the Ring of Fire is taking so long.

The answer, said Coutts, is simply that jumping through all the legal hoops set out by the government and bringing sometimes sceptical First Nation communities on board takes time and can’t be rushed through.

“People are always asking me, ‘Why is it taking so long?’ Well, it’s because of working through those things. There’s two layers of government and nine individual First Nations that have traditional use of the land. Those things take time. Environmental assessments take time,” said Coutts. “We did of three-and-a -half years of work in the corridor we wish to access. That’s what it takes with environmental assessments these days to get infrastructure built.”

The infrastructure project central to Noront’s ambitions for the Ring of Fire is road corridor that would link the mining site and local First Nation communities to the outside world. If construction began immediately, Coutts estimated it would take a year-and-a-half to two years to complete.

Although the road corridor is often viewed as a Noront project, Coutts insists they are a mining company, not an infrastructure company, and want to see the road taken care of by the province and companies in the business of building roads.

“We don’t want to be infrastructure developers, we want to be infrastructure users. So we’ll stick to what we’re good at and let them build the infrastructure – come what may,” said Coutts.

Noront is willing to support any proposal that will help establish easy transportation to the Ring of Fire region, provided that it is in line with environmental policy and can bring the local First Nations on board. This apparently includes KWG’s railway corridor proposal which the company revealed this week may be paid for in its entirety by the Bank of China.

“At Noront we’re a user of infrastructure, so we’re not going to pick and choose one project over another. If there’s a sound feasibility study that’s publicly available, if there’s financing that is really there and place, if there’s a consultation process with First Nations and an environmental assessment done, we would back any infrastructure proposal for the region,” replied Coutts when asked about the KWG railway deal with the Chinese.

Noront has no reason not to work with KWG, said Coutts, especially considering that Noront is largest shareholder in KWG.