Tungsten Puts New Brunswick Back on Ottawa's Map
The Sisson Mine tungsten and molybdenum project in the Tobique River Valley gains momentum with Canadian and U.S. support, positioning New Brunswick in a global race for resource security
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When Prime Minister Carney unveiled the first tranche of Major Projects Office picks in September, New Brunswick was not on the list.
The picture changed on November 13 when the second tranche of major projects revealed that Sisson Mine, a proposed open-pit tungsten and molybdenum development in the Tobique River Valley north of Fredericton, is now under formal consideration.
And there is a great deal to consider.
The Sisson Mine project is being advanced by the Sisson Partnership, led by Northcliff Resources, with backing from New Zealand’s Todd Corporation, which owns an 11.5 per cent interest in the Partnership.
To qualify as a major project, the Sisson Mine has to show clear benefits to Canadians across the five criteria set out in the Building Canada Act, namely that it will:
strengthen Canada’s autonomy, resilience and security;
provide economic or other benefits to Canada;
have a high likelihood of successful execution;
advance the interests of Indigenous Peoples; and
contribute to clean growth and to Canada’s objectives with respect to climate change.
An Estimated Value
Sisson is flagged as significant: Based on numbers from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Minerals Commodities Studies in 2020, the Sisson Mine could produce 4,400 metric tonnes per year (t/yr) of tungsten content. According to a 2025 USGS Minerals study, China produced 67,000 t/yr in 2024 from a total of 81,000 t/yr produced globally.
Back-of-the-envelope math indicates that Sisson Mine could represent as much as 5.4 per cent of the global tungsten production, or as much as 31 per cent of production outside of China.
Tungsten is a strategic mineral, essential for ultra-durable steel, advanced defence technologies and the high-precision tools that underpin modern industry and infrastructure.
The mine could also produce a potential 2,200 tonnes of molybdenite (MO) per year as a by-product.
Adding small amounts of molybdenum transforms ordinary steel into advanced grades of high-strength, low-alloy steels used in pipelines and structural beams, and corrosion-resistant stainless steels used in marine, chemical, and food-processing environments.
New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt is still crunching numbers of the potential royalties the project could bring in.
“We used to use the estimates of about $280 million of royalties, $245 million of tax revenue. Some of that is dependent on the price of the resource and the cost to development, so those are the initial estimates we’re working with,” she said in a November 13 Canadian Press story.
The proposed mine site is located in the traditional territory of the Wolastoqiyik, about 33 kilometres from Neqotkuk (Tobique First Nation), adjacent to Plaster Rock.
The project itself is hardly new.
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