Ontario mines minister says Ring of Fire could be worth $1 trillion, a figure critics call exaggerated
CBC
From the time the Ring of Fire was discovered in 2007, politicians and industry leaders have emphasized the potential economic value of the remote, mineral-rich area in northern Ontario.
That has intensified in recent weeks, with Ontario Mines Minister George Pirie saying recently: "Anecdotally, mining people are saying this is a trillion-dollar project."
Pirie told Global News in a recent documentary that the $1-trillion amount was "not a formal valuation," but was "based on the increased value of critical minerals that are already established being in the ground."
Professionals and researchers in mining and resource governance have called the minister's comments exaggerated and even harmful, possibly opening the door to potential fraud.
CBC News sent an email to Pirie's office asking why he used the $1-trillion claim, what information he was relying on when citing possible valuations in the area, and if the province has a working valuation of the Ring of Fire.
Pirie's spokesperson, Dylan Moore, gave a brief response: "The economic potential is limitless."
When Wyloo Metals chief executive officer Luca Giacovazzi was asked about Pirie's claim, he laughed and told Global, "There is a lot of myth around the Ring of Fire [and] a number like that is way exaggerated … numbers like that are a little bit silly."
But in a statement to CBC News, the CEO of Ring of Fire Metals, Kristan Straub, publicly revealed for the first time that their latest estimation about the valuation of minerals in the region comes in at around $90 billion.
Ring of Fire Metals (formerly known as Noront Resources) holds the majority of established mining claims in the region. Australian mining company Wyloo Metals bought the company in April 2022 in a $600-million deal, taking the public company private.
Straub did not provide a detailed breakdown of how it reached that estimation, leaving one geologist concerned about how they got such a large number.
Mohan Srivastava said it's frustrating to see the minister make and stand by his statements on the value of minerals in the Ring of Fire.
Srivastava, a mineral resource estimate consultant with Red Dot 3D, has been a geologist specializing in resource estimation since the 1970s. Srivastava co-wrote the widely used university textbook An Introduction to Applied Geostatistics, a field of study that applies statistical methods to analyze Earth science data.
"No, it's not limitless. It couldn't be," said Srivastava, adding the $1-trillion claim is "such a round number, it gives itself away as an arm-waving speculation."
Professional geologists and publicly traded companies in Canada would never be able to make such claims, Srivastava said, because they are governed by national regulations — called the National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.
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