Northern N.B. site near Belledune chosen for new explosives factory

Northern N.B. site near Belledune chosen for new explosives factory

Company NALAGX moving forward with province’s land offer, CEO says

A private company is forging ahead with plans to build an explosives factory in northern New Brunswick after the province offered a parcel of land near Belledune.

“The project represents a potential positive development for New Brunswick's continued economic growth,” Natural Resources Minister John Herron wrote in a letter to the company, NALAGX, dated July 30.

The letter, first reported on by the Globe and Mail, was obtained by CBC News through a provincial government spokesperson.

Herron said in the letter that his department identified a 1,500-acre parcel of Crown land as a potential lease site for an “energetics manufacturing facility” near the Port of Belledune.

The land identified by the department is roughly 60 kilometres northwest of Bathurst and is just outside the municipalities of Heron Bay and Belledune.

Herron wrote that the site location was favourable “due to its proximity to roads, rail infrastructure, and the Port of Belledune.”

NALAGX CEO Patrick Gagnon, a former MP from the Gaspésie region of Quebec, said the company chose New Brunswick over other provinces, adding the government was pleasant to work with and worked hard to put together an offer.

The factory would produce TNT, which is used in artillery and drones, as well as propellant. The facility is slated to be fully operational by 2030.

The site, which Gagnon called a campus, would also build explosives for the mining and construction industries alongside the defence industry, he said.

Gagnon said there’s a shortage of explosives within NATO, and Canada has all the materials needed for production.

“It is a defensive posture … it's to serve as a deterrent to Russia and adversaries that we have sufficient conventional stockpiles in order to avert any conflict,” he said.

Gagnon said northern New Brunswick has the workforce, technical colleges and the Port of Belledune, which all tie in to make it an “ideal location.”

The plans for the site show that it can eliminate “95, if not 100 per cent of all effluent … so very little, if any, pollution at all,” Gagnon said.

The plant would be a modern one built with a high emphasis on safety stewardship, he said.

The first phase of the facility would bring 250 jobs, plus possibly 100 in construction, while future phases could bring just under 1,000, Gagnon said.

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“These are going to be well paid positions. These are the new careers,” he said.

“And I think it's something that resonates with the folks of northern New Brunswick and given their past history with heavy industry from mining, paper and smelters and whatnot.”

The letter from Herron said the offer for the location is contingent on NALAGX securing a funding agreement with a “credible operating partner” by Dec. 31.

Gagnon said NALAGX is currently in “deep discussions” with an operator, who he declined to name, and hopes to come to an agreement in early October.

Gagnon said NALAGX has reached out to some community leaders in the area, including Chief Terry Richardson of nearby Pabineau First Nation, which is about a 45-minute drive south of the factory site.

“With all the closures that have happened in the region, all this new development is going to help bring prosperity to the region and make the north a player again in the province of New Brunswick and bring prosperity to the province of New Brunswick,” Richardson said in an interview.

As a veteran himself, Richardson said he also sees the military argument for the need for this facility.

"When we look at what's happening in the war in Ukraine and Russia, there's a need for armaments."

Adding on the trade war with the United States, Richardson said there’s a need to consider ways to diversify the economy.

“We're in the early stages, and I think it could be a great project for the region.”

CBC News reached out to mayors Mario LaPointe of Belledune and Gail Fearon of Heron Bay as well as the Port of Belledune on Tuesday evening but did not immediately receive responses.

Sam Farley is a Fredericton-based reporter at CBC New Brunswick. Originally from Boston, he is a journalism graduate of the University of King's College in Halifax. He can be reached at sam.farley@cbc.ca