Explosive mining exploration driving economy.

Over the last 16 years, Sudbury-area mining exploration expenditures have doubled to a total of $50 million, and the number of exploration projects have increased nearly five-fold, according to the manager of information and marketing services with the Ontario Geological Survey, Ministry of Northern Development and Mines.

In an address to the NORCAT / Northern Ontario Business Opportunity Breakfast Series (NNOS), Marc Leroux said exploration activity in the Sudbury area has jumped significantly in an industry currently providing 22,500 direct mining jobs and 75,000 indirect supply and manufacture jobs throughout Ontario.

Historically, Greater Sudbury mining activity has been dominated by INCO and Falconbridge, leaving the local geological survey office the quietest in the province. All of that changed as the number of exploration projects in the area jumped from seven in 1990 to 36 in 2006, and the survey office is now the busiest in Ontario.

"The dynamics of the industry in Sudbury have really changed," he says.

"It's really vibrant, and it's less risk-averse because there are so many players in here, so it's a really excellent time for Sudbury."

These numbers are part of the greater shift towards stronger exploration expenditures in Ontario, which are expected to reach a total of $341 million in 2006, with nearly 450 junior exploration companies active in the province, representing record numbers.

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Driving much of the local activity, he says, is the fact that companies have only recently begun to understand the potential of an area left largely unexplored for years.

This viewpoint is echoed by Alar Soever, president of Wallbridge Mining Company Ltd., which has a 2007 exploration budget of nearly $5 million for its Sudbury-area properties.

"For many years, the focus between Falconbridge and INCO was strictly in the mining environment, very close to existing deposits on the contact," says Soever. "Nobody actually did much exploration because everybody believed that INCO and Falconbridge had done it all, but now we're working on the footwall environment, which is in the rocks around the Sudbury Basin, and we're finding that Sudbury-related rocks extend further out than was previously recognized."

With 33 properties spread across 612 square kilometres, Wallbridge is the largest Canadian landholder in the Sudbury camp, where it has spent a projected $20 million to date.

The company currently employs a winter staff of 15, and while many of its projects are in the initial drilling phase, contractor Heath and Sherwood Drilling Inc. is performing resource drilling on its local Frost Lake project.

"The potential in Sudbury is just enormous," says Soever. "People are constantly finding new mineralization, which you can see if you look at Falconbridge's Nickel Rim discovery and the FNX (projects)."

By NICK STEWART

Northern Ontario Business