Here is something to help build back ground understanding by the average retail investor type while the NOT Discussion Forum (exercise in pure moronics as it is) mob continue their Head Banging - as funny as that is, the NOT Forum is but a bemusement!

Anyway, NOT to waste time:

Given the situation as it appears to be at present respecting all things 'Ring of Fire' and 'Chromite Ore' deposits, it is a good thing knowing that not only Cliff's now has the fundamental critical information on RoF Chromite Ore Characteristics in their possession.

With luck Xstrata will become critically interested as well!

In the mean time the following should give the average prospective investor a good general understanding of prime matters Chromite and what is needed in Northern Ontario to Maximize on Chromite value.

From the Bursa Krom web site

Chrome Ore
While many minerals contain chromium, chromite (FeCr 2O4) is the only commercial ore mineral. Chromite has several industrial end uses, primarily based on its Cr: Fe content. High chromium ores (defined by having high Cr: Fe ratios) are used for producing ferro-chromium for metallurgical applications such as stainless steel (the most important application by volume (85%) and special uses (superalloys, special steels, plating). High iron chromitites are being used for the production of low quality ferro chromium, foundry sands, chromium salts (used in the leather tanning industry, as a pigment and in chromium plating) and refractory purposes (production of magnesite-chromite and chromite-magnesite bricks). South Africa, Kazakhstan and Turkey are the world’s largest producers of chromite ore.
There are no economical substitutes for chromite ore in the production of ferrochromium (i.e. stainless steel), chromium chemicals, or chromite refractories at present. Currently, chromium free substitutes either compromise product quality and/or increase costs.
The bulk of chromite reserves are found in stratiform deposits (thin, even layers covering a broad area), but podiform deposits (scattered, pod-shaped formations of varying size) are also important. The major sources are South Africa, Zimbabwe, Russia, Turkey, Albania, the Philippines, and Finland.

Chrome Ore Processing

Chromite deposits are mined by both underground and surface techniques. Much of the ore is rich enough to be used directly: for production of ferrochromium, a rich, lumpy ore containing more than 46 percent Cr2O3 and having a chromium-iron ratio greater than 2:1 is preferred, but ores with a lower ratio and as little as 40 percent Cr2O3 are also used. (Ores high in alumina are preferred for processing into refractory brick.) As finely divided ores, which do not smelt efficiently, come under greater exploitation, a number of processes are employed to agglomerate them for more satisfactory use in furnaces. Fines can be blended with fluxes and coke (the principal source of carbon) and then preheated or “prereduced” before being charged into an electric smelting furnace.
If carbon and Cr2O3 are combined in a molar ratio of 3:1 and subjected to increasing temperature, a number of oxidation-reduction reactions will ensue that will produce first a series of chromium carbides and finally, at 2,080° C (3,775° F), pure chromium and carbon monoxide. (This will take place at 1 atmosphere, or about 100 kilopascals, of pressure, but reducing the pressure will lower all of the reaction temperatures.) This theoretical reaction does not account for the presence, in commercial practice, of impurities in the metal and slag that may alter reaction temperatures and cause undesirable reactions of their own. For this reason, while a ferrochromium of very low carbon content (less than 0.1 percent) can in principle be produced in a single stage of smelting, in practice not all carbon is eliminated owing to the presence of magnesia, alumina, and silica in the ore and the use of silica as a flux to lower the melting point of the slag. In practice, therefore, the primary product is usually a high-carbon ferrochromium that can subsequently be refined to a low-carbon product. If pure chromium is desired, iron must be removed from the ore or from an intermediate ferrochromium product by hydrometallurgical techniques .
Extraction and refining High-carbon ferrochromium :
Most ores smelted with coke in an electric furnace produce metals that are saturated with carbon. For ferrochromium, the saturation point is approximately 9 percent, but actual carbon content varies with the condition of the ore and the composition of the slag. For example, with a lumpy, refractory ore and a slag containing approximately equal amounts of magnesia, alumina, and silica, a ferrochromium is produced that contains 4 to 6 percent carbon and less than 1.5 percent silicon. This is a result of high temperatures generated by a viscous slag, of a slowly reacting bulky ore, and, possibly, of refining of the molten metal by undissolved ore in the slag. When the rate of the reducing reaction is increased by using fine ore, or when the slag is made less viscous by adding lime to the melt, the carbon level of the ferrochromium approaches saturation. Adding more silica to the charge produces what is called charge ferrochromium, a carbon-saturated alloy with an increased silicon content. Some South African ores produce charge ferrochromium containing 52–54 percent chromium, 6–7 percent carbon, and 2–4 percent silicon; ores from Zimbabwe with a higher chromium-iron ratio yield a product that is 63–67 percent chromium, 5–7 percent carbon, and 3–6 percent silicon. During the smelting of high-carbon or charge ferrochromium, slag and metal are tapped from the furnace into a ladle and separated by decanting or skimming. The recovery of chromium from the ore varies: in a good operation 90 percent is recovered in the molten metal; of the 10 percent remaining in the slag, some is in metallic form and can be recovered by mineral processing techniques. The smelting of charge ferrochromium consumes 4,000 kilowatt-hours of electric power per ton of alloy produced, compared with 4,600 kilowatt-hours per ton for high-carbon ferrochromium.
Ferrochrome silicon - Extraction and refining:
If silica is added to the charge until its weight equals that of the ore, the smelting processes will yield what is known as ferrochrome silicon. Containing 38–42 percent silicon and less than 0.1 percent carbon, this alloy is used as a deoxidizer in the production of stainless steel and as an intermediate material in the production of low-carbon ferrochromium. Because of the greater energy required to reduce silica to silicon, the smelting of ferrochrome silicon consumes 7,600 kilowatt-hours per ton of product.
Low-carbon ferrochromium - Extraction and refining
When chromite and lime are melted in an open electric-arc furnace and then contacted with ferrochrome silicon, a low-carbon (0.05 percent) ferrochromium can be obtained. In an alternate process, high-carbon ferrochromium is oxidized and then blended with additional high-carbon ferrochromium. The briquetted mixture is placed in a large vacuum furnace, which is heated by graphite resistors to 1,400° C (2,550° F) at a reduced pressure of 30 pascals. The carbon is removed from the alloy (going off as carbon monoxide) to a level as low as 0.01 percent.
Chromium metal - Extraction and refining
Pure chromium is produced either by the thermal reduction of Cr2O3 with aluminum or by the electrolysis of trivalent chromium solutions. The aluminothermic process begins with the roasting of fine ore, soda, and lime in air at 1,100° C (2,000° F). This creates a calcine containing sodium chromate, which is leached from the insoluble gangue and then reduced and precipitated as Cr2O3. The Cr2O3 is blended with finely divided aluminum powder, charged to a refractory-lined container, and ignited. The combustion quickly generates temperatures in excess of 2,000° C (3,600° F), giving a clean separation of chromium from the slag. The purity of the metal, varying from 97 to 99 percent chromium, depends on the starting materials. In the electrolytic process, milled high-carbon ferrochromium is leached by a mixture of reduced anolyte (electrolytic solution recycled from the anode side of the smelting cell), a chrome alum mother liquor based on a solution of ammonium sulfate recycled from a later stage in the process, and sulfuric acid. The resultant slurry is cooled, and silica and other undissolved solids are filtered from the solution. The iron forms crude ferrous ammonium sulfate crystals, which also are filtered out. The mother liquor is then clarified in a filter press, and about 80 percent of the chromium is stripped by precipitation as ammonium chrome alum. The mother liquor is sent back to the leach circuit while the chrome alum crystals are dissolved in hot water and fed into the cathode portion of an electrolytic cell. The cell is divided by a diaphragm in order to prevent the chromic and sulfuric acids formed at the anode from mixing with the catholyte (cathode electrolyte). With the passage of electric current from a lead anode to a thin stainless-steel cathode sheet, chromium is plated onto the cathode and, every 72 hours, is stripped from the sheet, sealed in stainless steel cans, and heated to 420° C (790° F) to remove water and hydrogen. This electrolytic chromium contains 0.5 percent oxygen, which is too high for some applications; combining it with carbon and heating the briquettes to 1,400° C (2,550° F) at 13 pascals lowers the oxygen content to 0.02 percent, resulting in a metal more than 99.9 percent pure.