All eyes on Sudbury's 'Frontier' with new lithium project

It was a packed house at Bryston's in Copper Cliff on Wednesday as members of the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce came out to hear the latest on lithium.

Specifically, they were there to hear from Frontier Lithium president Trevor Walker, who touched on the company's plans to develop the Pak deposit in northwestern Ontario.

The Sudbury-based company could soon become one of the biggest lithium suppliers in North America given the value of the deposit at Pakeagama Lake.

"We're blessed to also have former Chief Bart Meekis of Sandy Lake First Nations on the board of directors," said Walker.

Since he gave his last update, a lot of things have changed for the company. Lithium, along with nickel, have seen relatively large price swings and is now a metal that is very much in demand.

It's one of the key ingredients in the lithium-ion battery as the automotive industry continues to make a transition from fuel to electric vehicles.

"Here we are at just a mere two years later, at a very exciting time for all of Ontario and this is about bridging north and south and all Ontarians together," Walker said.

"We have a strong mineral endowment in the north and a strong manufacturing process in the south so we have tremendous leverage here."

Walker praised the province's new Critical Minerals Strategy, which was designed to foster further exploration and development, particularly for junior players in the industry.

The company plans on establishing a camp at the deposit and with access to Thunder Bay and easy shipping routes from the northwest to manufacturing hubs like Windsor, he said a pan-provincial approach is going to be key in Ontario's success in capturing the market.

"It's very much by design to make sure you have the right structure for the company, as a steward of a tier-one resource in making sure you're keeping the wealth opportunity as close to the resource in the north as possible, so we were really cognizant of this," Walker said.

"We started work early and we got ahead of the market, but it's sure coming together quite nicely for us."

The life of the Pak deposit is expected to generate roughly more than $8.52 billion in revenue and hundreds of jobs through construction and development.

"This project will build jobs in northern Ontario for northern Ontarians with the resources they've held for many years so fantastic work by Frontier Lithium," said Neil Milner, chair of the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce.

Milner said it's nice to see a Sudbury company on the verge of cornering the market and creating economic benefits for the entire region.

"There's a broad base of minerals here in Sudbury and across the northern Ontario region, so it's great that we have new companies that are locally based and coming in to produce those resources," he said.