Explorationists in Sudbury basin confidently dig deeper for new ore

Morning North8:24State of Mining series - mining projects

What's left to mine in Northeastern Ontario? The CBC's Olivia Stefanovich joined us in studio to share some of the projects that geologists and mining experts are excited about.

Despite the shaky economy, there's lots of mining and exploration activityin the Sudbury Basin and industry insiders are telling CBC News theres a rich future ahead.

• International miners tour 'deep' Sudbury mines

The president and CEO of theSudbury Platinum Corporation is one of them.

"We're really excited about getting the drills started in Sudbury here, Scott McLean said.

We think Sudbury is still one of the best places to be in the globe for discovering new ore bodies."

Dan Farrow can relate to that sentiment. The Sudbury district geologist said he believes many parts of the basin are under-explored, partly due to the fact that most claims are owned by major players, like Vale and Glencore.

"That's their future basically, and they will explore it as they need. And they're doing that right now."

Farrow said a lot of what's being found in the basin is only reachable at great depths.

At KGHM International's Victoria Project, located just north of Walden, exploration work is underway.

Project manager Michael Luciano said he expects KGHM International to have long-term operations at the site.

When the mine's in full swing, I haven't seen the exact numbers, but my guess would be we're looking at in the range of 250 or more permanent jobs will be supplied by this mine over that period of 16 or so years, he said.

Those permanent jobs could materialize in 2020, when pre-production work begins for a mine, he added.