CIB closes $20-million loan for Hope Bay wind in Nunavut

IQALUIT — The Canada Infrastructure Bank has closed a $20-million loan for an Inuit-led wind project that will power Agnico Eagle Mines’ Hope Bay gold operations in Nunavut.

The borrower is the Kitikmeot Tugliq Limited Partnership, between the Kitikmeot Inuit Association and Tugliq Energy. The build pairs a 4.2-megawatt wind turbine with a four-megawatt battery storage system and is expected to cut diesel use by up to three million litres a year and emissions by some 13,000 tonnes.

Natural Resources Canada has already put $25 million into the same wind project through its Smart Renewables and Electrification Pathways program. Agnico Eagle ($AEM) green-lit Hope Bay as a mine redevelopment in May — among Canada’s northernmost — after a prior wind pitch near its Meliadine mine was withdrawn amid community opposition.

CIB says the wind job should employ about 15 people at peak construction and share long-term profits with local communities. It is the bank’s second Nunavut close, after a $6.7-million loan for wind and storage in Sanikiluaq — federal capital chasing diesel displacement at remote industrial sites as northern energy costs stay structurally high.