The Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC) has declared a force majeure on its contracts as it seeks to minimize delivery disruptions to customers after a fire at its Sept-Îles port reclaimer No. 2 on Mar 31.
IOC said in a statement on Monday that it was assessing the impact of the fire, which was brought under control with no recorded injuries, on its operations and looking into what had caused it. The company did not disclose the fire’s impact on inventories and infrastructure but said that production is slated to continue as normal since the incident had only affected shipments.
The company’s minority stakeholder Labrador Iron Ore Royalty is a Rio Tinto JV. IOC’s operations are integrated across the mine and processing plant in Labrador City, Newfoundland, and Labrador. The port holds stockpiles and ships from Sept-Îles, Quebec. The company operates a 418km railway line managed by the subsidiary QNS to link the two cities. The port has a two-car dumper with 60 car per hour capacity.
IOC produced 9.6mn mt of pellets and 8.1mn mt of iron ore concentrate in 2020. The company’s sales in 2020 totaled 18.6mn mt with 10.2mn mt of iron ore pellets and 8.4mn mt of iron ore concentrate.
IOC currently has the nominal capacity to extract around 55mn mt of crude ore annually with sufficient ore reserves for approximately 24 years with potential for additional resources.