High-Purity Quebec Iron Ore: A Crucial Resource for the Green Transition in the Steel Industry

November 16 2026, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
(Offered only in French)

Room 307AB

Workshop Organizer: Serge Perreault (Ordre des géologues du Québec) and Sylvie Lévesque (Corem)

The Fermont-Labrador City region hosts significant high-purity iron ore resources, a key input for producing low-carbon steel. These ores contain less iron (28 to 33%) than the deposits mined in Australia and Brazil (55 to 62%). However, they are metamorphosed and coarse-grained, so the iron oxides separate well from the quartz. An ore grading about 30% iron can therefore yield a concentrate of more than 67% total Fe. This is the threshold that defines high-purity iron in Québec’s list of critical and strategic minerals.

This result depends on the proportions of magnetite and hematite, as well as on grain size and degree of liberation. The iron oxides of the southern Labrador Trough, particularly at Mont-Wright and Lac Bloom, also contain low levels of deleterious elements (aluminum, titanium, phosphorus). This holds true both in the gangue and in the crystal structure of the oxides, unlike some non-metamorphosed ores. These advantages allow producers to earn a premium on their sales and to manufacture superior-quality pellets.

The workshop will cover the origin and typology of sedimentary iron formations, their mineralogical characteristics, and the physicochemical processes that formed the high-purity deposits of the northeastern Grenville Province. It will present the advantages and limitations of these ores, along with the essential role of applied mineralogy in understanding, mining, and adding value to them.