Goodheart,

Well put. For some reason CLF decided to have a shot across the bow, especially of the Provincial ship. But this display of temper tantrum would not do any thing good for CLF, for the following reasons:

- the Prov goverment is a minority government which is fighting for its own survival.

- The first budget was passed with the support of the NDP just before the recess of the Legislature until September, so don't expect any major decision from the current government, even several months after September. Keeping in mind that it has to deal with a few major political issues.

- EA:? Well, CLF just have to take a number and wait for the process to go through just like anyone else. But, may be CLF has a point wrt the crawling speed of the process. May be this shot across the bow would wake up somebody for speeding up the process to show that Ontario/Canada is open for business as a mining friendly jurisdiction. Yes, a green line must be drawn to protect the environment (which includes the people), etc...but, there must be a limit to the process. If it takes so long and unreasonably difficult to comply then international companies just pick up the marbles and play somewhere else.

- Easement ruling: CLF cannot bulldoze its way through. May be this is one win for KWG.

In addition, this tantrum could be just a display of CLF's way of doing things. It used to be a profitable company with lots of cash in it's treasury. But now the profits are down significantly and the market cap has drop from 1 year ago @ $7B to about 1/3 of that @ $2.6B which is lower than the $4B it paid for Consolidated Thompson. CLF is triming down operations left and right and in essence fighting for it's own survival, let alone spending over $3B for the chromite project.

This postponement came as a no surprise. Also, it should not be a surprise to see the following:

- CLF taking on a major partner (and talking nicely to KWG, i.e. forming a JV to mine BD which is much better than BT), if it decides to pursue their chromite project.

- Some bigger fish will come along and take CLF out. An offer of $2.6B plus 50% premium = $4B would probably do it.

In the big scheme of things, the cost of the chromite project of $3B or so is not a big sum if all key players including the Prov. and the Fed. governments are willing to chip in.

Now, with this postponement in the background will CLF vote NO to the supershare proposal? How about getting around this problem by selling its entire KWG holding (and the 70% of BD) to get some cash, or shares? The new owner (say, Baosteel, or pick your own candidate) would team up with KWG to propose another chromite project which can provide some initial shipment of DSO (by rail of course). The smelter (@ the cost of $1.8B could be dealt with later). And that would be something.

goldhunter