Oil Sands, Fresh Policies Drive Canada's Metals & Minerals Industry to $313 Billion in Project Spending

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Thanks to abundant natural resources and an increasingly favorable political atmosphere, Canada's Metals & Minerals Industry is spurring heavy project investments, with the booming Alberta Oil Sands driving almost one-third of the nation's estimated spending. Industrial Info is tracking 473 active and unconfirmed projects in Canada that have a total investment value (TIV) of more than $313 billion. Construction on 128 projects worth $53 billion is expected to kick off within the next 12 months.

Click on the image at right for a graph detailing active projects in Canada by province or territory.

Almost 80% of the TIV--more than $247 billion--is related to 364 projects that are still in the planning stages, which means that plenty of factors could increase, decrease or cancel the projected spending. Construction has begun on 86 projects with a TIV of more than $42 billion, while 23 projects with a TIV of $23.6 billion are in the engineering stages.

Alberta leads all other provinces and territories by a long shot, with 51 projects valued at almost $116 billion--all but $9.6 billion of which can be attributed to the province's oil sands. One of the largest planned projects is the $10 billion debottlenecking and expansion of Imperial Oil Limited's Kearl Oil Sands Mine, north of Fort McKay. The project, which is part of a long-term plan to boost capacity to 345,000 barrels per day (BBL/d) of bitumen, involves debottlenecking and expanding the 110,000-BBL/d Train 1 and the 110,000-BBL/d Train 2. Imperial Oil is a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) (Irving, Texas).

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Quebec holds the second-highest TIV, with $48.37 billion from 98 projects, much of which is being driven by policies from the province's newly elected government. The Liberal Party announced earlier this year that it would revive and extend "Plan Nord," a mining plan that covers 1.2 square kilometers in the province's resource-rich northern areas. For more information, see July 16, 2014, article- Quebec's Metals and Minerals Industry Boasts $57 Billion of Projects as New Government Shows Support.

One of the biggest projects being planned for Quebec is Tata Steel Minerals Canada Limited's (Montreal, Quebec) $4.24 billion construction of the KeMag Iron Ore Mine, north of Schefferville. The deposit is to be developed for a 22-year mine life, as part of an 88 million-ton-per-year iron ore taconite project. The open pit operation is designed to have a centralized, 22 million-ton-per-year concentrator, and will transport ore concentrate via a slurry pipeline to the planned Sept-Iles Pellet Plant/Shipping Port. SNC-Lavalin Incorporated (Montreal) is expected to perform design-engineering services. Tata Steel Minerals Canada Limited is a joint venture between Tata Steel (64%) (Mumbai, India) and New Millennium Iron (36%) (Montreal).

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Canada's Atlantic provinces--Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island--only hold about $18 billion of the $313 billion total. But one of the largest projects in the region is one of those under construction: the $1.25 billion first phase of Vale S.A.'s (NYSE:VALE) (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) nickel/hydrometallurgical processing plant in Long Harbour-Mount Arlington Heights, Newfoundland. The project, which is set to be completed in early August, involves building a refinery to produce 12,500 tons per year or less. The second phase, estimated at $3 billion, is planned to boost capacity to 50,000 tons per year. Fluor Canada Limited (Saint John's, Newfoundland) is performing design-engineering services.

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