The ATCO tower in Calgary in April, 2024. The company said it will pay $10-million for a 40-per-cent ownership stake in West Kitikmeot Resources Corp.Louis Oliver/The Globe and Mail
ATCO Ltd. ACO-X-T announced on Monday that it will acquire a significant minority interest in an Inuit-owned mineral exploration company planning to build a port along the Northwest Passage in the Arctic.
ATCO, which is based in Calgary, said it will pay $10-million for a 40-per-cent ownership stake in West Kitikmeot Resources Corp., the developer of the Grays Bay Road and Port Project. The project envisions the construction of the first deepwater port in the western Arctic, along with an airstrip and a 230-kilometre all-season gravel road through some of Nunavut’s most isolated areas. The road would connect Grays Bay on the Arctic coast to an existing winter road that reaches Yellowknife.
The port would have three wharves capable of accommodating a variety of vessels, from bulk carriers and Coast Guard ships to tugs, patrol submarines and offshore patrol ships.
Grays Bay was one of four northern infrastructure projects referred earlier this month to the Major Projects Office, a federal body established last year to expedite regulatory approvals and financing for projects deemed to be of national importance.
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Brendan Bell, chief executive officer of West Kitikmeot Resources, said the company has applied to federal funding programs that require matching private investment, typically 25 per cent of the total.
“ATCO is able to make that available for us,” Mr. Bell said.
He said the price of the stake reflects the risks that remain. “There’s a lot of work to do on costing, on engineering, on design. The federal commitments are starting to roll in, which is very encouraging, but it’s early days yet.”
In a written response, ATCO spokesperson Doris Kaufmann Woodcock said the company’s funds will be disbursed over time to pay for feasibility studies, licensing costs and other expenses.
ATCO, which employs more than 20,000 people across several operating units, is already in the ports business. It owns a 40-per-cent stake in Neltume Ports S.A., which operates bulk cargo and container terminals in Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and the U.S. ATCO reported $24-million in earnings from Neltume in 2024, about 5 per cent of its total earnings.
West Kitikmeot Resources is majority-owned by the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, one of three non-profit organizations representing regional interests of Inuit in Nunavut. The association previously led the project in partnership with the Government of Nunavut, but transferred its responsibilities to West Kitikmeot Resources in 2023.
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Mr. Bell said ATCO’s expertise is more important than the funding it is providing, including its support for Canada’s military in the Arctic and overseas. He added that the company has experience working in the North and has built relationships with Inuit communities.
“If you’re thinking about building a port, you need housing, you need infrastructure, you need power, you need utilities, you need all of these things ATCO can bring,” he added.
The proponents have estimated that construction would take five years, with the port potentially in service by 2035. They have asked the federal government to pay for three-quarters of the project’s costs. The preliminary estimate of those costs is $1.2-billion.
Iterations of the proposed port and road date back decades and have been promoted primarily as a way to access undeveloped zinc and copper deposits in the region. West Kitikmeot Resources is also promoting the Arcadia Bay project, a proposed gold project roughly 20 kilometres west of Grays Bay. Mr. Bell said the port could help supply Arctic communities and establish a greater military presence in the North.