KWG Resources has signed on CANARAIL Consultants to conduct a rail feasibility study for the Ring of Fire and for its development partners, China Railway First Survey & Design Institute.
Quebec-based CANARAIL provides consulting and engineering services for mining and freight railways, and has worked on projects on every major continent.
According to KWG, it worked on a feasibility study for a mining railway in northern Quebec under Plan Nord, and has refurbished rail cars in the Rocky Mountaineer fleet.
"CANARAIL benefits from the unique expertise that it has gained in providing similar services to other mining interests either here in Canada or abroad", said KWG President Frank Smeenk in a July 27 news release. “CANARAIL's knowledge of current materials and services pricing in Canada plus what it takes to design and build a mining railway while complying with local environmental, social and other applicable standards will prove to be of great assistance in facilitating and expediting completion of the feasibility study proposed by (China Railway).”
Last November, KWG announced a three-year agreement with China Railway First Survey and Design Institute to study KWG’s long-standing plans for an ore-haul railway into the James Bay region to haul out chromite for processing.
KWG hosted engineers from China Rail in touring the corridor by helicopter last April.
In 2010, KWG staked a 340-kilometre corridor from the CN main line near Nakina into the remote mineral belt and to the Big Daddy chromite deposit, of which KWG owns a 30 per cent share with Noront Resources.
But KWG no longer has exclusive rights on the corridor. In February, an Ontario appeals court upheld a divisional court ruling from last year that allows other mining companies to apply for an easement to use the route into the remote exploration camp in the province’s Far North.
