New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt was in Ottawa Monday to meet with several top officials, including Prime Minister Mark Carney. 

As the two met in the prime minister’s office, Carney said the focus of the meeting would largely be on energy. 

“When we meet, we make progress. We made progress on the Sisson Mine last time we talked,” Carney said.

After the meeting, Holt told reporters the two discussed the terms of the price floor and offtake agreements New Brunswick is looking for.

“The offtake agreement hasn’t been finalized yet,” she said, adding that file is on the desks of Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson and the Major Projects Office. 

“We’ve been leaning in hard,” said Holt. “We believe it’s moving, and moving at the speed we need it to at this point – we’re not concerned.”

Holt also said she was pleased with the work of the Major Projects Office, even though the Sisson project has not been designated as a national interest project under the Building Canada Act. 

“We’re moving ahead, designation or not, and right now we feel the support and the speed from the federal government,” she said.

The Sisson project is a proposed large-scale open-pit tungsten and molybdenum mine located some 60 km northwest of Fredericton. 

The project had already received provincial and federal approvals when Carney referred it to the Major Projects Office last fall. 

The company behind the project, Northcliff Resources, has yet to pull the trigger on Sisson, partly because of the market instability caused by China’s control over the supply and pricing of these minerals. 

The project has been stalled for almost a decade, although pre-construction work at the site began last year thanks to a US$15 million award from the U.S. Defense Production Act and C$8.2 million from Canada. 

Recently, Northcliff Resources received a two-month extension to repay a $3.5 million loan to its largest shareholder, a subsidiary of a privately held conglomerate based in New Zealand.

Hodgson previously told a House committee that a final investment decision on Sisson could be made next year, with construction beginning in 2029. 

The federal government could help nudge Northcliff Resources towards a final investment decision by setting up a price floor that would shield the company from dramatic market swings driven by China’s dominance.

That would involve establishing a fair market value price for tungsten and molybdenum, and guaranteeing that the federal government or another entity would directly purchase the minerals at that price for a given period of time.

The U.S. has also pitched price floor mechanisms to allies as part of a plan to reduce the supply chain dependence on China, but little has been shared in terms of prices, implementation and rollout.

With a file from the Canadian Press