ORT ... that PR the other day might have seemed kind of pointless in Montreal or Toronto, but they seemed to think it was important to sell people down here.
This is from the local English weekly out today ... (obviously translated from the original French )
Exploration Orbite could create 550 jobs on the Gaspé
Genevieve Gélinas
GASPE -- Exploration Orbite could create about 550 direct and indirect jobs if the company succeeds in installing processing plants to extract alurnina from its Grande-Vallée aluminous clay property. Orbite president and chief executive officer, Richard Boudreault, was on the Gaspé Peninsula last week to present a study prepared by SECOR about the economic benefits of his project for the region.
Exploration Orbite is already operating a pilot plant in Cap-Chat, in order to test its extraction process. The 50 jobs linked to that plant, which would be converted into a high-purity alumina producer, would be preserved.
Orbite would like to build a second plant to produce 1,750 tons per day of metallurgical alumina (of lesser purity) which would hire 200 people. Mr. Boudreault doesn't know yet where this plant will be built, but he will consider many factors.
"We prefer to build the plant as close as possible to the deposit. The deposit is located between Madeleine, Grande Vallée and Murdochville. There will be a study, and our choice will strictly be an economic one."
Three hundred more indirect jobs would be added to the 250 direct ones, in transportation and connected industrial activities, including suppliers. The exploitation expenses would reach S102.3 million per year in the Gaspésie, which would be equivalent to 5% of the regional gross domestic product (GDP).
Exploration Orbite wants both plants (Cap-Chat and the Estran sector) to be completed by the end of 2013. The Cap-Chat plant is already up-and- running, but modifications will have to be carried out to start commercial production.
The figure of 540 jobs doesn't take into account the construction phase, which would require 859 more Gaspesian workers, for a total of about 2,800 in the whole province. The impact of expenses on facilities would reach $211.3 million in Quebec, and $65.5 million in the Gaspésie.
Daniel Denis, of Secor, added that "because the alumina will have to be shipped out, investments in transportation infrastructures will be needed, and it will allow other companies to benefit from the infrastructure."
Presently, Quebec plants use mostly bauxite as a raw material to produce aluminum, most of this bauxite being imported from Brazil. SECOR is estimating that using Gaspesian alumina would be 5% cheaper for the smelters, mostly because of transportation cost savings. "Five percent doesn't look as if it's going to make a big difference, said Mr. Denis. "But it means that the Quebec aluminum smelters will be the first to grow and the last to lay off people."
Why did Exploration Orbite commission a study about economic benefits? "It is part of the process," replied Mr. Boudreault. "We have to calculate the spin-offs in order to interest the governments and communities."
In Gaspe, about 70 business people, mayors, councillors and leaders of local organizations participated in the public relations exercise.
Orbite also recently appointed Andre Lemieux as its community relations director for the Gaspe. Mr. Lemieux. a previous development commissioner for Murdochville, will open a community relations office in Grande-Vallée.
Orbite has plans to extract Gaspesian alumina
GASPE -- In the roads behind Grande-Vallée and Madeleine, the earth is red in some places. That's the color of aluminous clay, which would supply the Orbite processing plants.
One can find that kind of clay in other countries and even in other areas of the Quebec Appalachians. Orbite has developed a patented process to extract alumina from the clay.
The company owns the mining rights on a 64 square kilometer property (called "Grande-Vallée"), located 32 kilometers northeast of Murdochville. The clay on the property contains about 23% of alumina. "In just the top 100 meters, there's enough alumina to supply the Quebec aluminum smelters for 50 years," said Richard Boudreault, president and CEO of Orbite.
Exploration Orbite would like to produce two kinds of alumina, metallurgic and ultra pure. Refined to 99.7% purity, metallurgical alumina could supply aluminum smelters, which use alumina
to produce aluminum. Orbite is aiming for a production of 1,750 tons per day of metallurgic alumina, which is the equivalent of 10% of Quebec's aluminum smelters' needs. The price of that kind of alumina was around $US 400 per ton last spring.
Refined to 99.99% purity, it becomes "ultra pure alumina". That product is used to make LED lights or fiber optic. Prices for ultra pure alumina are much higher than for metallurgical alumina: it costs $330 per kilo on the average. Orbite would like to produce five tons a day of ultra pure alumina.
The Grande-Vallée clay would be hauled by truck to the metallurgical alumina production plant, located in Estran (between Madeleine and Cloridorme) or in Murdochville. "We're not going to install the plant in the middle of a tourist port site," guaranteed Mr. Boudreault. Consequently, another means of transportation will be needed to carry alumina to the port of Grande-Vallee or to the one at Mont-Louis. "lt could be a pipeline," said Mr. Boudreault.
Barges would sail from the port of Grande-Vallée or Mont-Louis to transport the alumina to the North Shore aluminum smelters. The alu- mina produced for foreign countries could also be shipped through the port of Gaspé.
What about the environmental impact? "We are going to use a recycling process, so there won't be much pollution. That's a modern process,” assured Mr. Boudreault. The tailings would be composed mainly of silica and iron, and very few other substances, guaranteed an Orbite consultant.
Many Cote-de-Gaspé and Haute-Gaspésie mayors attended Exploration Orbite presentations in Gaspé and Sainte-Anne-des-Monts last week. Délisca Ritchie- Roussy, the mayor of Murodochville, said that she firmly believes in the Orbite project. "It's going to benefit the whole Gaspésie," she said.
At the same time. Mrs Ritchie-Roussy didn't forget to speak up for Murdochville's advantages. "I've offered our infrastructures to Orbite. We already had mining activities with Noranda. We have buildings, some land, streets ready for building houses and municipal infrastructures. We also have a labor force that is ready to work and some people who would come back to Murdochville if they had a job," said Mrs Ritchie-Roussy.
The mayor of Sainte-Anne-des-Monts, Micheline Pelletier, is insisting on the fact that "a large part of the aluminous clay deposit is located in Haute-Gaspésie, so we expect spin-offs in our MRC." Mrs Pelletier is also calling other mayors to show wisdom "by not promising things that we don't control. "
The clay deposit is located close to the Madeleine River, a salmon stream, and not very far from tourism-oriented villages. However, most of the mayors are not worried about the environmental impact of the project. They trust Québec's Environment Department's capacity to ensure that the company will respect environmental standards.
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