Arctic steel

ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steel producer, has recently acquired control of a Canadian mining company engaged in a large mining project in Baffin Island, close to the Arctic circle. With an almost insatiable appetite for iron ore, fuelled by the growth of Asian economies, the price of ore has gone through the roof, hitting over £110 per ton. The Baffin Island deposits are alleged to be the largest in the world (though this claim is contested by Rio Tinto's Guinean's deposits) but iron ore extraction would be extremely challenging, with constant blizzards and temperatures hardly ever reaching 0ºC. Developing the required infrastructure would require an investment estimated at around $8Bn, which would explain why these giant iron ore deposits have never yet been tapped.