What was the evolution of Wyloo’s pursuit of Nickel assets, and ultimately, the impetus for its acquisition of Ring of Fire Metals (formerly Noront Resources) this past April?

LG:  We started with the premise that nickel is going to be important, but not all nickel is equal. The product you make from a laterite differs greatly from that of a sulfide. We ultimately decided to focus on sulfides, because we think sulfides will have substantial cost advantages relative to laterites. Consequently, we made a deep dive into nickel sulphide projects.

Canada and Western Australia (WA) are the two big hubs for nickel sulfides, and we knew WA really well, having made a number of investments in the nickel space there. When we screened other opportunities in nickel sulfide, looking at grade and size, Eagle's Nest came at the top of our list every time. We then asked why is it not being developed? That is what prompted us to look at Noront. When we looked at the company, what attracted us the most was that we liked what the team was doing from a First Nations perspective. We knew the project had a long history, and that it had been stranded for a long time. However, seeing the shift-change that their management team had achieved over the past five years was incredibly compelling.

How have conditions surrounding Ring of Fire development improved over time?

SF: There are three phases to the history of the Ring of Fire region: The initial discovery phase, when the area started with diamond exploration. While looking for diamonds explorers found copper-zinc mineralization, and there was exploration growth. Then Noront discovered the Eagle's Nest nickel deposit while exploring for copper-zinc in 2007. When the fantastic diamond drill results came out on the Eagle's Nest discovery, the region ballooned with over 40 companies exploring the area. Soon after, the first chromite deposits were found, leading to an acceleration in expanding the chromite resource. This resulted in Cliffs coming in and taking over two junior mining companies. Following this, two companies had development projects: Noront, where we were doing feasibility and environmental assessment work on developing the Eagle's Nest nickel-copper-PGM project, and Cliffs doing work to develop its Black Thor chromite project. Things got more challenging because the distance of both projects from established infrastructure was significant, and there were no existing roads. This required bringing the provincial government to support the development. At the same time, the communities were unhappy because they felt overlooked by the explorers and government. Consequently, more substantial processes of talking to and involving the communities advanced between the companies and the provincial government.

The regional infrastructure was a difficult process to advance, and Cliffs decided to give up on the project despite putting many hundreds of millions of dollars into it. In 2015, Noront purchased the Cliffs’ assets, which made Noront the leading stakeholder in the area. We were still challenged by the lack of infrastructure, so we talked to the local communities, and they were not satisfied that there was just going to be an industrial road and potentially no community roads. That led us to advocate for a bigger project that involved access to the communities as well as development in the Ring of Fire.

What is the current status of road development?

LG: This process is still going on, and it is 100% funded by the province of Ontario with a multi-million dollar commitment. That means that the roads will get built, with the communities taking the lead. Wyloo’s role is to support them in the execution of that. This is by far the largest project ever in Canada with First Nations communities as the proponents and an outstanding example of economic based reconciliation.

What is Wyloo’s vision for the Ring of Fire and its presence in Ontario and Canada moving forward?

LG: We are motivated to see progress on three fronts: Eagle's Nest’s infrastructure development, the battery metals processing plant in Ontario, and in our exploration in Canada.