Cutting a 149-km rail track through bogs and permafrost to ship iron ore

NunatsiqOnline profiles the engineering hurdle Baffinland Iron Ore Mines Corp. will face as it attempts to get iron ore from its inland Mary River iron ore site to ports on the coast.

The company will have to build nearly all the infrastructure in a remote and hostile environment so it can ship an estimated 18 million tonnes of ore.

The railway will include 13 locomotives with 480 ore carriers, divided into four trains of 110 to 130 cars each. Each will make at least two round trips per day between Mary River and Steensby Inlet 300 days a year, according to information from the project’senvironmental impact statement.

Building the railway for the Mary River project will require great feats of engineering, stamina, about $1.9 billion and many workers.

Read more here.

Early last year ArecelorMittal successfully beat out Nunavut Iron Ore to take onwership of Baffinland Iron Ore Mines Corp.

The giant new opencast mine 480-km inside the Arctic Circle in a bid to extract a potential $23bn worth of iron ore.

The mega-mine is believed to be the largest mineral extraction project in the Arctic and highlights the huge commercial potential of the far north as global warming makes industrial development in the region easier.

 

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