Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

NNSL (Apr 12/99) - When it comes to accessing the resource-rich Slave Geological Province, a land route from the Arctic coast is the most financially viable, according to a GNWT document.

The GNWT's Department of Transportation, in a summary of a not-yet-released Arthur Anderson report, concludes the Bathurst Inlet to Nunavut border concept is cheapest, in the short term.

The department was able to release a summary to the stakeholder advisory committee because it has a draft report.

Masood Hassan, transportation planning director, said Wednesday the $135,000 report is due out next month.

Building a port and road system from Bathurst Inlet to Inmet's Izok base metal property west of Contwoyto Lake, would cost about $180 million and cover about 280 kilometres.

Izok is one of the largest undeveloped zinc-copper deposits in North America.

A road from the south, either through Rae-Edzo or Yellowknife, would cost from $380 million to $430 million, Hassan said, basing cost on $500,000 a kilometre. Distance covered would be about 720 kilometres to 840 kilometres.

"An all-weather road will be needed only if a base metal mine is developed at Izok," Hassan said.

The Northern route would also mean cheaper fuel costs, Hassan added.

Shipping fuel by ocean tanker down Bathurst Inlet then trucking it into the SGP is cheaper than trucking it from Edmonton, he said. A northern port and road would cut Ekati's fuel costs by 10 cents a litre, the summary concludes.

Estimates linked to Izok -- which would truck in fuel and truck out mineral concentrate -- show Izok's owners could almost entirely finance a road from the north, Hassan said.

Users of the road would pay a toll.

"If the traffic forecasts are correct, then the majority of costs could be financed by users of the road."

Izok is one of five mineral projects in the SGP with feasibility studies completed or under way. Others are Diavik, Ulu, George and Thor. The summary concludes existing roads -- the Lupin ice road -- meets the needs of existing mines (Ekati) and projects in final stages of approval (Diavik).

Projects at the advanced exploration stage include Boston, Damoti, Gondor, Jericho and Nicolas, Hassan said.

In all, there are 31 projects at various stages of exploration-development in the SGP.

One of the properties not mentioned in the summary is Fortune Minerals. Company president Robin Goad, in a letter to Russ Neudorf, senior transportation planner with DOT, said Fortune was not contacted by the department on how an all-weather road might effect the project.

Goad says the company's Nico and Sue-Dianne base metal projects, between Dogrib communities Gameti (Rae Lakes) and Wha Ti, are at the prefeasibility stage.

Last Thursday, Rae-Edzo Mayor Fred Behrens questioned the credibility of the summary.

Behrens said, "The only time anybody came to Rae was for the environmental side of it."

He is concerned that more was not made of the economic benefits a road through Rae-Edzo would offer. Such a road would open up access to Wha Ti, Gameti and Wekweti (Snare Lake).