According to information distributed at public meetings in Cambridge Bay, the two Nunavut communities closest to the Izok Corridor, the new, streamlined mine plan includes a relocation of the 3 million metric tons per year ore plant at Grays Bay, more modular components into the mine deign and a mining of the most distant deposit, Izok, to followed by High Lake.

The mine, with a lifespan of 11 years could be operational in eight years.

But “one more hurdle exists,” MMG said in its project update. “Even with all the changes and finding hundreds of million dollars in savings, the enormous capital costs of building the needed regional transportation and communications infrastructure is still more than the project can support.”

The majority Chinese-government-owned company plans to tell the Review Board by the end of the year whether or not to proceed, Scott Trussler, MMG’s manager of approvals, said Sept. 8 at a public meeting in Cambridge Bay.

According to the Nunavut newspaper, Trussler said the Red Dog mine in northwestern Alaska received Alaska state assistance for similar regional infrastructure.

MMG says there would be many benefits for the improved regional infrastructure the company needs in the Kitikmeot: the mine project would add $5.1 billion to the gross domestic product of Nunavut and $2.5 billion to the GDP of Canada.

During its operations, the mine would bring $391 million to Nunavut, equal to 18 percent of the territory’s output in 2012, and $1.5 billion in jobs. It also would increase inbound cargo and full storage capacity, assist with Arctic sovereignty and safety and spill response.

The haul road could lead to a winter overland link between the Northwest Territories and Nunavut and “progress towards an all-season link.”

At the Sept. 8 meeting at the Luke Novoligak Community Hall, several people asked about training, jobs and rotations – but Trussler said until a decision is made on whether to move ahead, it’s too early to talk about these issues.

The rich mineral deposits at Izok Lake and the other properties in MMG’s collection have been known to geologists since the late 1950s. Since then, the on-again, off-again property has passed through the hands of many owners, none of whom ever figured out how to economically mine and transport the region’s huge stores of zinc, copper and lead.

The MMG group emerged after 2009, when state-owned China Minmetals Corp. gobbled up nearly all mines and exploration projects controlled by Australia’s debt-ridden Oz Minerals Ltd. One of those properties was the lead-copper-zinc sites in the western Kitikmeot region of Nunavut that Wolfden Resources Inc. had sold to Zinifex, the company that formed one-half of the short-lived Oz conglomerate.

MMG filed the first version of its project description with the Review Board on Sept. 4, 2012.

After a screening, with recommendations from the NIRB, Bernard Valcourt, the minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, ordered in April 2013 that the project get an environmental review under Part 5 of the Nunavut land claim agreement’s Article 12.

But soon after, MMG told the review board that they wanted to file an updated version of the project description prior to the start of any work on scoping and guidelines for a future environmental impact statement. That’s because the company wanted to consider “additional project design options with potential to improve the economic viability of the project,” the newspaper said.