“They’re not supporting Inuit-owned companies, so why should we support them?”

The Bathurst Inlet Port and Road Project, long-hailed by Kitikmeot leaders as a means of lifting their region from poverty, has lost a key supporter.

Zinifex Ltd. now favours building its own port, west of Bathurst Inlet and just north of its High Lake property, at Grays Bay.

The port would connect to a road network that links up to the company's potentially lucrative Izok Lake property, which may be the site of a zinc and copper mine by 2014, if Zinifex‘s plans go as expected.

Andrew Mitchell, Zinifex's Canadian development manager, says the company came to the conclusion in May that BIPAR, as the project is popularly known, is too expensive and too lengthy, compared with the company's more-direct route to the coast.

It's bad news for Charlie Lyall, president of Kitikmeot Corp. and a long-time booster of BIPAR, who worries "there's not room for two ports in the region."

"I'm not very happy," he said. "The only people that are going to benefit is Zinifex. It's not going to benefit the communities."

In Lyall's mind, BIPAR would do more than open up a region rich in gold, silver and zinc, among other metals, and diamonds, for mining.

It would also lower the cost of shipping fuel and other supplies to Kitikmeot communities, and as a result lower the cost of living. And it would allow an earlier start to a short summer construction season.

Lyall says "there's still hope" for Zinifex to rejoin the project. But, if that doesn't happen, he warns the company may face opposition from the region's influential Inuit organizations.

"I hope Inuit organizations see fit they don't support the project. They're not supporting Inuit-owned companies, so why should we support them?"

The BIPAR project recently entered Nunavut's environmental review regime, with a project application submitted to the Nunavut Impact Review Board in January 2008.

It included optimistic plans to begin work in the autumn of 2009, and have the port and connecting road, which would stretch 211-km from Bathurst Inlet to Contwoyto Lake, near the border with the Northwest Territories, open by the summer of 2012.

Delays or cancellation of BIPAR may hamper the development of other potential mines in the area, such as Sabina Silver Corp.'s Hackett River project.

Meanwhile, Zinifex has altered its development plans, by putting its High Lake zinc and copper project on hold and making Izok Lake its new priority.

While High Lake is a bigger property, Izok Lake is believed to possess ore that is three-times as rich in zinc, Mitchell said, making the site far more profitable.

Izok Lake is expected to employ roughly 400 workers during its two-year construction, Mitchell said, and about 250 workers during its operation. The mine is expected to have a life of about 10 to 12 years as 14.8 million tonnes of zinc-rich ore is extracted.

This summer the company begins prefeasibility study and environmental work for Izok Lake. Zinifex hopes to submit its project application to the Nunavut Impact Review Board by the end of 2008.

A peak of between 60 to 80 workers will scour Izok Lake this summer, conducting a mixture of geological drilling and environmental studies of water, sediment and fish.

Zinc prices have softened in the past six months, dropping from $1.25/lb (U.S.) to 86¢/lb this Tuesday. But Zinifex is counting on zinc prices to remain stronger than they were in the early 1990s, when prices sunk to 50¢/lb.

If metal prices remain high, Zinifex could remain an employer in the Kitikmeot for a long time. After Izok is exhausted, the company plans to move on to High Lake, which is believed to possess 17.3 million tonnes of zinc-bearing ore.

And the company also owns the Ulu and Lupin gold properties.

This isn't the first time the owner of Izok Lake has dropped out from BIPAR. The property has changed hands four times since the early 1990s, and with each new owner has come a different strategy for how to ship base metals from the mine.

There's no sign of Zinifex giving up the property soon, although the company may soon have a new name.

If a takeover bid goes as planned, by late July the company will have been merged with another Austrialian mining company, Oxiana Ltd., to be reborn as OZ Minerals Ltd.