GN and mining company will work on new energy development for Nunavut iron mine

Nunavut’s department of Economic Development and Transportation has teamed up with the Advanced Explorations mining company to look at new energy sources.

Advanced Explorations announced April 3 that it will work with the GN “to advance research on alternative energy sources for use in northern Canada.”

Advanced Explorations is looking at how to power its iron-rich Roche Bay and Tuktu iron ore projects located on the east coast of the Melville Peninsula, 60 kilometres southwest of Hall Beach and close to the coast at Roche Bay.

The company said new energy sources could supply power, cut operating costs at the future mine and allow for more mining to take place on the site.

The location of the projects, coupled with access to a deep water port, provides opportunities that could lead to a “regionally based, alternative energy program,” the release said.

“This approach would provide substantial benefits to the Roche Bay project and its surrounding communities. It could also have the potential to serve as a regional hub for Nunavut in producing cleaner, less expensive and more commercially sustainable power generation over the longer term,” it stated.

Advanced Explorations has hired Tetra Tech Wardrop to prepare a report that assesses the technical and economic merits of alternative energy systems when compared to diesel.

The development of alternative power sources is of “real interest” to the GN, so the GN and Advanced Explorations have agreed “to collaborate and share any intellectual property generated from this work,” the company’s release said.

“Our team has successfully worked on implementing a plan for an alternative power solution, and we believe that the potential savings in capital and operating cost or our mining projects will play a key part on our way to becoming a cost-competitive producer in the iron ore space,” said John Gingerich, the company’s president and chief executive officer.

The two iron mine projects could contain more that a billion tonnes of iron, which has been called “very high grade.”

In 2010, a Chinese company, XinXing Ductile Iron Pipes, one of the world’s largest producers of cast iron pipe, announced it would spend as much as $1 billion to fast-track a Roche Bay iron mine into production.