The President and Chief Executive Officer of Kap Minerals says there is a bright future ahead for the former phosphate mine west of Kapuskasing.
Jeff Ivan says a lot has changed in the world markets since the mine was active including the need for critical minerals and the increase price of phosphate.
“The other thing that has changed to is the requirement for low cadmium phosphate,” he said. “Five per cent of the world’s phosphate deposits are low cadmium — the Kapuskasing phosphate mine is extremely low typically less than one part per million in cadmium.”
He notes that since the parent company Infracon Construction bought the former facility, two employees have been hired and a business plan is being put together.
“We would like to ramp up as soon as possible and testing and everything is adequate,” he said. “Our goals is to set up a processing facility to separate the phosphate and rare earths as mentioned and possibly even refine other critical minerals like titanium etc.”
The company also purchased a processing facility in Matheson, and Ivan says a full evaluation will be done to see its potential.
He adds agreements with the Provincial Government and Taykwa Tagamou First National are also being worked on.
At least 100 jobs could be created when the mine is in full production.
