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Champion Iron Resumes Rail Service, Expects Delays in Sales

Written by Laura Miller

June 14, 2023

The forest fires raging in Canada caused rail interruptions for Champion Iron last week. With the fires now subsiding in the area, the company reports a resumption in rail services between its Bloom Lake mine and the port of Sept-Îles on the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Quebec.

Mining activities continued at Bloom Lake while rail services were suspended, and thus the operation now has a stockpile of iron ore concentrate, Champion said in a press release.

“Following the gradual ramp-up in capacity of the railway and limited additional availability of rolling stock to accommodate excess volumes beyond Bloom Lake’s production capacity,” the Montreal-based company says to expect delays in sales of concentrate from the operation.

Champion’s subsidiary Quebec Iron Ore Inc. operates the open-pit Bloom Lake Mining Complex in Quebec. Its two concentrators, ran primarily by hydroelectric power, have a combined annual capacity of 15 million tons of iron ore concentrate.

By Laura Miller, laura@steelmarketupdate.com

Laura Miller

Laura Miller is a reporter and editor for Steel Market Update. Since 2007, she has held various editorial and marketing positions with steel industry publications, associations, and mills. In 2021, after a five-year hiatus working across other industries, she returned to steel trade journalism, joining SMU in 2022. She is a member of the Association of Women in the Metal Industries and a past-president of the AWMI Pittsburgh Chapter. She holds a BA in Latin American Studies from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She can be reached at laura@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7869.

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