Thank you for the question, MP Thompson.
The province, particularly the island of Newfoundland, is blessed with an extremely strong wind resource. We've had many experts looking at our project, from offtakers to OEMs, and they all remark at the speed of the onshore wind and the capacity factor as well. That's huge. It all starts with the resource.
Unique to our site—to some other sites in the province as well, but I can speak to ours in detail—is that we have existing transmission corridors and a low-density population. A massive freshwater supply served a former paper mill, as I mentioned in my comments. That is key. We don't have to encroach on any municipal or other provincial water sources, and it's fresh water. The other leading project in the world is in Saudi Arabia in Neom. A company called Air Products is moving that project along. They have to desalinate all their water. In order to have a carbon score to allow that product to be considered green by the EU, which are the standards that are setting the pace right now, they have to use renewable energy to do the desalination of the water. If you think about how that works economically, it's a huge advantage for us to have the freshwater supplies that we have here.
In terms of stakeholder support and first nations support, I know that it's not just with Qalipu First Nation, which is key to where our project is located. Miawpukek First Nation is extremely supportive as well. Unanimous support from the first nations on the island is huge. They recognize the fact that we're in a climate emergency; that we need to take leadership action; that we have the opportunity to do this right here, very quickly, because of the uniqueness of our site; and that we're in close proximity to the initial markets.
We're anxious to find ways to add value to the product here at home locally. We have some conversations on that started. The steel industry is a massive emitter of carbon, and there are huge movements to convert the steel plants in the world to green. Labrador, as you're probably well aware, has a very high-quality ore that holds a huge opportunity for advancing this industry more quickly.
I could go on and on about the advantages and how well we're positioned. As mentioned in my comments, I don't think we can understate the fact that we really do have the opportunity to lead the world here. It's extremely unique, at this moment in time, for the reasons you've pointed out. The OEMs that we're working with are amongst the leading companies in the world for the manufacturing of turbines, electrolyzers and all the long lead components.
We've had to sell ourselves to them. They're looking at the U.S. and the IRA subsidies and saying, “Well, once these come on, these projects are going to be well funded.” We've had to take risks, much like everyone at Bear Head, and spend our own capital to move forward and convince these OEMs that they should reserve manufacturing slots for our project. We've been successful at doing that, because they've recognized the value in the location, the support from the province and the support from the federal government, but they're still waiting to see what these subsidies are going to look like: Are your financial models going to be able to deliver on the indications you have from both the federal government and the province when it comes to the royalty regime?
As stated, that information can't come quickly enough. We need the ITC coverage to be clarified. Hopefully, it's extremely broad to give us that partial “level set” with the U.S. IRA. Then we need the contracts for different arrangements to be implemented and for Canada to send a message to the world that we're serious and we're here. These projects will start to move forward even quicker once those clarifications are made.