HAY RIVER - A mining company says it is committed to building a plant in the South Slave, but company officials admit they are also considering alternative sites in the South.

David Swisher: Avalon Rare Metals Inc. committed to building processing plant at Pine Point. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

Avalon Rare Metals Inc., is eying the old Pine Point mine site for a hydrometallurgical plant. It would refine ore from the Nechalacho rare earths deposit at Thor Lake on the north side of Great Slave Lake, about 100 km southeast of Yellowknife.

"Yes, we are looking elsewhere," said David Swisher, the company's vice-president of operations, when asked about the plant's location during a project update for Hay River town council on Dec. 6. "In fact, we're not just looking elsewhere, we're getting calls probably once a week from different provinces and different states asking for us to come in and build there. So we've actually shipped out an RFP – a request for proposals – based on what our minimum requirements are and those groups are getting back to us."

Despite that, the company is "committed" to having a hydrometallurgical facility in the NWT, he said.

Swisher explained the company wants the plant in the NWT despite the extra cost.

"It basically costs an additional $22 million in operating costs to have it in the Northwest Territories and capital costs are an additional $30 to $40 million," he said. The company is working with the GNWT to develop incentives – perhaps tax or land incentives – that might ensure the plant is built at Pine Point.

While emphasizing he would like to see the plant at Pine Point, Hay River Mayor Kelly Schofield asked Swisher to outline the benefits for Avalon of having the plant in the NWT.

"There are definitely some tradeoffs," said Swisher, noting, for example, the cost of shipping unprocessed product to the South.

However, he said a big reason for having the plant at Pine Point is a commitment to aboriginal people to build the plant on the south side of Great Slave Lake.

If the plant is built at Pine Point about 90 km to the east, Hay River would become home to a share of the 90 to 100 people who would work at the facility. Others would live in Fort Resolution.

After being mined, the ore would be barged across Great Slave Lake to Pine Point. After going through the hydrometallurgical plant, it would be trucked to just south of Hay River where it will be put on trains for shipment south.

Swisher told council if everything goes well, the hydrometallurgical plant could start producing by the end of 2015.

Rare earth metals – including europium, terbium, tantalum, zirconium and others – are valuable for a number of uses, including in hybrid electric cars.

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