Alan Coutts of NOT has been busy.

- First veil dropped: Buying CLF exploration camp for an undisclosed amount. NOT is full steam ahead for the construction of Nickel mine (and BB next). It needs the space and the empty CLF camp, along with some equipement and a kitchen (very important up north) just happens to be next door.

- Veil #2: Alan was speaking out loud about NOT's interest in CLF chromite. There are afew key phrases (underlined) in this article, some of my comments were inserted in the excerpt.

http://www.northernontariobusiness.com/Industry-News/mining/2014/05/Noront-interested-in-Cliffs’-Ring-of-Fire-assets.aspx

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Coutts said: If Casablanca were to get its way and Cliffs decides to divest itself of its Ontario properties, Coutts said Noront is prepared to jump in with a formal proposal (somewhere, it also says "to be the first in line").
“We would be very interested (key word: "very") in having that discussion.”

Coutts said Noront has an equity ownership group with deep enough pockets (more than 2, with the 3rd and 4th,...are lurking in the background with eyes and eras open) to make a major move if necessary; namely the Baosteel Group, one of China’s largest steel producers, and Resource Capital Fund, which recently raised $2 billion for mining investments.

“We do have some depth (whatever this means) when it comes to make acquisitions.”

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I am mulling over the implication of NOT (with deep pocket backer) acquiring CLF chromite assets (the word used was something like "to consolidate its chromite position in the RoF", but it sounds like to have a monopoly/control of the chromite in the RoF.

Let's see who else has chromite in the neighbourhood? KWG, PRB (BC used to belong to NOT) and they can all (BT, BC, BD, BH, BB) be lumped together as a "chromite district" (a strip of land of approximately 12 km long and 1-2 km wide) for a huge deposit that will last for centuries. The only question is which deposit is the most economical to mine first, and the rest can be put in reserve and wait for its turn (some may not be developed at all, but holding it would prevent competion in the area...selfish, but that is the business world, it's a jungle out there).

My guess: The complete picture will emerge (Veil #7) with KWG, as a baby elephant, and at least two 700-lb gorrilas, in there somewhere.

goldhunter