...TGR: Champion Minerals Inc. (CHM:TSX) has iron ore projects in the Labrador Trough. Your 12-month target there is $4.20/share, and it is trading at less than $1.40/share. Its Fire Lake North, Bellechasse and Harvey-Tuttle properties have a combined Measured and Indicated (M&I) resource of 400 Mt, grading about 30% total iron. There's another 1.82 billion tons (Bt) at about 25.4% total iron. How does that resource compare with companies at similar stages of development, for example, Alderon?

GM: I think Champion compares directly with Alderon and Consolidated Thompson in terms of having ample resource size to consider a potential production path. Consolidated Thompson's Bloom Lake resources had similar grade, but with more than 2 gigatons (Gt) of defined and compliant iron ore resources in its portfolio in the Fermont mining district, highlighted by more than 1 Gt on its flagship Fire Lake project, Champion is well positioned to use its resource portfolio to go into and expand on production.

TGR: What's the likelihood that Champion will get its M&I resource above 1 Gt at around 30% iron within a calendar year?

GM: I think Champion has a good likelihood of graduating its resources into the M&I category. We expect to see a number of resource updates across the portfolio coming up. I would expect an updated preliminary economic assessment on Fire Lake North later in November.

TGR: Is 30.6% total iron a low grade for this sort of deposit? Is that a concern?

GM: It is similar to that exploited by Consolidated Thompson at the Bloom Lake mine. Many other features play a significant part if the underlying economics of a deposit (e.g., mass recovery and grind size). For instance, a measure of effective mass recovery is very important for iron ore resources as it can give you a gauge of the mass needed to be mined and processed to produce a certain amount of product of a particular quality. Mass recovery can vary significantly between deposits with similar iron content, so the figure plays an important role in evaluating the potential of an iron ore resource. You need to look at more than iron content to judge resource exploitation potential....


TGR: If investors want to add only one iron ore junior to their portfolio, how should they choose among the companies you've named?

GM: It all relates to their comfort with risk and geography, and whether they like to look at junior companies with resource expansion and development potential, or iron ore producers with output growth on the horizon. If investors are looking for resource expansion, Talon, Champion or Alderon deliver resource expansion and development potential. If they are looking for projects further along the development pipeline, New Millennium Iron Corp. (NML:TSX.V) and Northland are on the development path with their respective projects in Canada and Sweden. If they are looking for exposure to Canadian iron ore production, there is Labrador Iron Mines Holdings Ltd. (LIM:TSX) or Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. It just depends on where your risk comfort lies.
http://www.gold-speculator.com/gold-report/70315-geordie-mark-iron-ore-still-strong.html