The Quebec government has approved the expansion of the Lake Bloom iron ore mine in the north of the province.

The expansion will double production at the mine to 15 million tonnes per annum, with commercial production of the expansion area expected at the end of 2022, La Presse reported.

The Phase 2 project will also expand the mine life to 20 years.

The expansion project will cost C$400 million, according to iron ore producer Minerai de fer Quebec, a subsidiary of Australian miner Champion Iron.

The company will need to pay C$20 million for financial compensation for the loss of fish and wetland habitats.

The government body overseeing environmental impacts, BAPE, had opposed the expansion of the project in a report released in February 2021.

The project will see nearly 800 million tonnes of mining waste be deposited in eight lakes. It proposed that the mining waste be retained in the pit.

Minerai de fer Quebec maintains it has spent the last few months improving the project. The company considered disposing mine tailings in the pit, but rejected this option because it would jeopardise future mining operations.

However, the approval plans contain no discernible change to operations or tailings storage.

The open-pit Bloom Lake operations include a concentrator. Champion Iron acquired Bloom Lake from bankruptcy protection in April 2016, and recommissioned the mine in February 2018.

The mine issued its prefeasibility study for Phase 2 expansion in June 2019, to bring the mine from production of 7.4 Mtpa to 15 Mtpa.