Let's see...what if a big producer of chromium wanted to prevent Cliffs from cornering the North American market, by taking over Kwg, Probe, Noront and / or Fancamp chromium assets. The FNC and NOT ore would be enough to compete directly with Cliffs on the world market, (especially if they develop BT 1st) while the 30% tap into Cliffs Big Daddy earnings, would certainly be an irritant but also a very cost-effective revenue stream. ($300mil to $400mil for every million tonnes of ore)

These holdings would also be enough to justify the building of the railroad, (3P: Public / Private Partnership) and keep it going (profitable) for many years to come.

I find it very hard to beleive and most unlikely, that Xstrata would sit on the sidelines and watch Cliffs bite into the biggest portion of the pie, without at least making a run at it and driving the price up for Cliffs' final take-over price. Xstrata knows exactly what is there (metalurgy) and most likely has access (through Glencore) to a bundle of cash that makes Cliffs' pocketbook look like pocket change.

The outside risk that I forsee and speculate about is the following. An ally of Cliffs could come in with a hostile take-over and pay a relatively low price, then sell it back to Cliffs withing a year of two. I sincerely hope that the big players pay attention to any and all attempts at a take-over even if it does come from a seamingly less-threatening unknown entity.

There is also an outside chance that a comparable position (just shy of 20%) could be purchased by an "unknown" (Chinese, Indian etc...) in essence as a counter-balance to the power that Cliffs holds over KWG.

Last comment...after what we have seen from Frank and his execs, I find it hard to beleive that they would cave-in to a low ball offer, or sell in order to accomodate artificial pressure on their own stock, unless they are facing some sort of corner position, where Cliffs is threatening to pull out and leave them hanging. This is unlikely, because we all know that Cliffs must do something before April 1st, 2012 or the partnership with KWG kicks in and that is a long-term cost that the Cliffs shareholders are not willing to accept. Just MHO...We will have to wait and see.

Good luck to all KWG longs.

LP