Coal Revival: From living on borrowed time to once again having a future: United Mine Workers of America Local 7606. This is a powerful story about coal, Estevan, Saskatchewan, SaskPower and Westmoreland.
Pipeline Online Podcast Ep. 13: Greg Rickford, Ontario Minister for the Ring of Fire. Are we Can’tada?
Danielle Smith and Doug Ford gave a press conference just before Bronwyn and I went online with Monday’s podcast, conveniently with the Ontario minister responsible for the Ring of Fire. Something came out of Ford that REALLY caught my eye.
He was talking about a deepwater port on James Bay. That’s the dangly part of Hudson Bay that happens to be really close, relatively speaking, to Ring of Fire.
No details have come out yet, but we have to remember this – there is no road, no railroad, no pipeline, NOTHING to James Bay. That area of northern Ontario might as well be the moon, which is why it has been so hard to get a GRAVEL road built to the Ring of Fire. I was shocked, yes, gravel. A multi billion dollar development to rival Fort McMurray and you’re going to have a gravel road???? And they talked about possibly a pipeline to said port, which will be conjured up from thin air. (Maybe they should build a paved road, first?)
What does this mean for Saskatchewan? Now there are potentially three ports in play on Hudson/James Bay? As I wrote last week, without a fleet of icebreakers at over $3 billion a pop, any port on Hudson Bay is a fool’s errand, at least for shipping oil.
But it seems Ontario is now serious about a new oil pipeline, entirely in Canada, to replace Enbridge Line 5.
And Premier Moe spoke a while back about any pipeline through Saskatchewan being automatically approved. Not sure what he meant by that, but is that why he didn’t need to take part in this press conference, since he was present at Stampede?
I didn’t have time to dig into all of this, but maybe I’ll do a column on it later this week. Here’s the Canadian Press stories about it.
Premiers Danielle Smith and Doug Ford agree to study new energy corridors, more trade
Ontario Premier Doug Ford pitches railway to Ring of Fire, Alberta is on board – Note, this is the first major rail project I’ve heard about, well, since I was born. Is this why the Sask NDP talk about rail projects, using EVRAZ steel?
Alberta to hold nuclear power consultations as reactor companies weigh opportunities
That column about Hudson Bay I referred to: Brian Zinchuk: Let’s get serious about shipping oil from Hudson Bay
I updated it with an animation of sea ice from last year to show how serious of an issue it is. https://pipeline-online-v1750862700.websitepro-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Hudson-Bay-Ice-Gif.gif
I do not think the economics of a port on James Bay for the ring of fire makes sense if you are building a road and rail to get there from the south. Better to just use that to ship product to the Seaway and then out for export. However there may be an option to build a port and a shorter rail to develop it. Then product goes out that way. Unlike oil, there are no issues stockpiling over the winter and ship over the summer. There are 2 main issues with any port on JB. One is ice and the other is bathymetry so for minerals you would need to use smaller shallower draft ships, more like Great Lakes freighters.. which could work.
Once again it is clear to me the Premiers are just blowing smoke and have no real concept of what might be needed to develop this area. And a pipeline?. What for?
Ain’t enough “values” (Carney TM) there ti get anything off the ground in current legislative prison of Cant-ada.
Here’s why:
https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/closure-date-set-for-lac-des-iles-palladium-mine-10908147
BIG OIL needs to PAY for CA’s insurance crisis!
https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2025/07/05/california-home-insurance-crisis-dave-jones/
Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass BURN the State to the ground … but it’s BIG OIL’s fault.
There is rail to James bay been there for years
Okay, I stand corrected. Does it go through the Ring of Fire area?
Actually, I just checked Google Maps. Yes, rail does go to Moosonee, that’s true. But it is 18 kilometres from tidewater. So it does not, in the strictest sense, actually reach James Bay or any port on James Bay. Because there is no deepwater port on James Bay, at least on the Ontario portion.
Isn’t there an old song about this? “I fell into a bungled ring of fire, shit went down, down, down, and the bill ran higher. And it burped, burped, burped, that ring of fire…” Something like that.
Only an ignorant moron would suggest building a road or a pipeline to James Bay. There’s a reason they use ice roads and barges to get stuff to the native communities up there: the whole area is muskeg and permafrost. It’s accumulated over glacial till and in some places is hundreds of feet deep. Building a road there that lasts more than a couple of years would be an engineering feat to rival the dykes of the Netherlands.