Although there have been no official changes since Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. suspended its environmental assessment last week, an official with the company is optimistic there will be soon.
The Cleveland-based company suspended its work on an environmental assessment for a proposed $3 billion project in the Ring of Fire saying until issues with First Nations and government are resolved it has taken the process as far as it can go.
In Thunder Bay Wednesday, senior vice-president of global ferroalloys Bill Boor said it’s time that all parties involved work together to see the project happen.
“We’re not leaving ourselves out of this, we’ve all got a responsibility to find solutions and that’s what this is really about,” he said.
Boor said individual meetings with First Nations communities or with government always leave him optimistic.
“I don’t see differences that we can’t get past,” he said.
But so far the difficulty has been getting everyone together to figure out a way forward. In the meantime the company continues to work on technical aspects of the project and hold discussions with First Nations and government.
“That’s not always visible to other people,” he said.
The delay does leave timelines for the project up in the air though.
“It’s anybody’s guess when we’re going to be able to clear them,” he said. “It’s a cloudy time right now to guess on the project.”
