Mining Explosion in (Northern) British Columbia

As with any resource dependent economy, one sector always seems to be up at the expense of the other. Unless you count the BC Government’s news about the growing market for BC wood in China, it’s fair to say that in BC, forestry is down while virtually all the good economic news seems to be coming from the mining sector. Much of that news is coming from Northern British Columbia.

One area that seems poised for development is near Highway 37 area, close to the northwest community of Terrace. Projects in this area include Red Chris (Imperial Metals TSX-III), Galore Creek (Nova Gold TSX-NG and Teck Cominco TSX-TCK), Mt Klappen (Fortune Minerals TSX-FT), Schaft Creek (Copper Fox Metals TSXV-CUU), Turnagain (Hard Creek Nickel TSX-HNC), Klutcho (Capstone Mining TSX-CS), GJ Kinaskan, Snowfields( TSX-SSO, Nasdaq-SSRI) and KSM (Seabridge Gold TSX-SEA, AMEX-SA).

Together, all these projects have an estimated cost of over $10 billion dollars – that’s over $250 million a year in taxes for the BC Government and then there’s the employment picture to consider. Some are predicting over a 1,000 new jobs in the area. With numbers like these, the north won’t be sleepy for long.

Why the interest in this area of the province? A number of factors play into consideration but there are two important ones: location and, yes, location. Location – these mines are located in a sparsely populated area of the province and First Nations leaders appear supportive of the attention – such as the construction of the Highway 37 power line. Location again – Northwest BC has easy access to two deep harbour, ice free ports at Stewart and Prince Rupert. Both are easily accessible to highway and rail traffic making the export of raw minerals to Asia quicker and more affordable than any other ocean route.

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Northwest British Columbia – Smithers, Hazelton, Terrace, Kitimat, Prince Rupert, Stewart – has received a great deal of press over the last twelve months. The area is home to a number of exploration and mining project that appear to be going concerns and have captured significant investor interest.

Short URL: http://northernbcbusiness.com/?p=1140

Posted by oneadam on 1:36 pm. Filed under BC Economy, Kitimat, Mining, North Coast, North West, Prince Rupert, Stewart, Terrace. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry