Hi rago,

Regarding the railway option, I would say ArcelorMittal. Using their private railway, in return for ..(dunno - a fee? share of the project?), would even more enhance the economical viability. It would just be pretty much 'plug and play' and saves most of the $ 229m for hooking up with the common carrier railway.

ArcelorMT could also just buy the project, but they also got a lot of ore themselves.. and though buyout would be relatively easy (a few 100m bucks.. or just issue shares), the hard part would be to finance the capex. ArcelorMT is already a highly geared company. It's the reason why the stock has been under tremendous pressure since 2008.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MT&t=5y&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=

Again, the Fraser report on CHM is a very good read.

http://www.frasermackenzie.com/newresearch/ALDERON/RPT_ADV_CHM_Nowak_071111.pdf

See page 31-32.. first on the common carrier (stating that capacity could become strained with all the new projects coming onstream), then on Arcelor's Cartier railway:

2) Cartier Rail. The Cartier Railway covers about 420 km through Quebec, linking ArcelorMittal’s Mont Wright concentrator in the Labrador Trough with its processing plant and port facilities at Port Cartier on the St. Lawrence River. The railway is privately owned and, since it does not cross provincial boundaries, it is not deemed a “common carrier” and is under no obligation to offer services to outside parties. Considering ArcelorMittal’s current production capacity of 14 Mt of concentrate and even its planned expansion to 24 Mt, it still appears that the railway has ample spare capacity. Even though the rail is close to Alderon’s and particularly close to Champion’s project, a deal to provide transportation services to either company is pure speculation at this point. It would also likely require some agreement for the use of ArcelorMittal’s port facilities.