Hopes for development of the promising $60-billion Ring of Fire mineral belt in northwestern Ontario took a heavy blow in November but they aren’t dead yet.

Just weeks after Cleveland-based Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. stunned the province by suspending its $3.3 billion project, a Toronto mining company is taking a major step forward.

Noront Resources Ltd., the second-largest player after Cliffs, has completed studies required for an environmental assessment of its plan to develop the Eagle’s Nest deposit of high-grade nickel, copper, platinum and palladium estimated to be worth $700 million.

“We believe that Eagle’s Nest will be the first mine developed in the Ring of Fire and this brings us one step closer to achieving that goal,” said chief executive Alan Coutts..

The entire Ring of Fire — an area of 4,000 square kilometres about 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay — is estimated to be worth about $60 billion in deposits, including chromite, a key ingredient in stainless steel.

It’s believed the area could be mined for up to 100 years.

Cliffs was to build a smelter near Sudbury, open a mine in the Ring of Fire in 2016 and create 1,200 jobs in the economically depressed north as part of its plans now on hold.

The company blamed unresolved land claims, environmental assessment issues and a lack of government support for infrastructure and power needs, prompting opposition parties to blame Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government for “bungling” a massive opportunity.

Work on Noront’s environmental impact statement began in 2009 — two years after the company found the mineral deposits — and examined the mine site itself along with a road corridor and railway loading area.

The plan is now available for public comment before a final version is submitted to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment, likely next spring.

Other mining firms such as KWG Resources, Bold Ventures Inc. and MacDonald Mines also have exploration on the go and are among 27 companies with 13,000 claims staked, said Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle.

“It would be incorrect to say Cliffs wasn’t a setback but other companies are extremely involved,” he told the Star from his riding of Thunder Bay—Superior North.

However, miners need more help if the Ring of Fire is to reach its full potential, observers said, such as the immediate formation of a government-led development corporation to build $2 billion in infrastructure such as roads and rail lines into the area.

The Ring of Fire is 300 kilometres from the nearest railway line and the troubles surrounding it have become heated with a Liberal minority government at Queen’s Park, an election expected as early as next spring, and Liberal seats in northern Ontario potentially at risk.

“The development corporation is a good idea but they should have done it three years ago,” added Progressive Conservative MPP Norm Miller (Parry Sound—Muskoka), his party’s northern development critic, who noted lots of businesses in southern Ontario would benefit from supplying equipment and materials to mining companies in the Ring of Fire.

He suspects the timing of Gravelle’s announcement that the province wants to form a development corporation with the federal government and miners was fishy.

“It came just before the Cliffs deal fell apart” in November, Miller said. “Has it been incorporated or was it just an announcement?”

Gravelle acknowledged the development corporation is “still in the discussion stage.”

He repeated calls for the federal government to join in with financial support, despite recent pronouncements suggesting Ottawa is cool to the idea after previously touting the Ring of Fire as a huge economic opportunity.

“We’re prepared to make a significant contribution to the development corporation and we’re hoping the federal government will do the same,” Gravelle said. “The corporation is going to be extremely important”

It’s anticipated about $1.25 billion will be needed for roads and another $1 billion for industrial infrastructure.

The danger now is that nothing happens, infrastructure does not get developed to help miners and the Ring of Fire turns cold, warned New Democrat MPP and mining critic Michael Mantha (Algoma—Manitoulin).

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“We’re only talking about one or two actual developments now. We’re still going to be spinning our wheels five years from now if we don’t move more aggressively.”

Gravelle said the government is also waiting for environmental and revenue-sharing agreements with First Nations to be worked out, calling them key to proceeding.

“Unless the First Nations are able to support this it’s hard to imagine this project moving forward,” he added, noting former premier Bob Rae is working for aboriginals on this while former Supreme Court justice Frank Iaccobucci s the government’s lead negotiator.

“We are hoping to have a framework agreement ready to sign soon. The province is absolutely committed to moving the Ring of Fire forward.”