LauraB,

Your post contains quite a few gems, e.g. the excerpt below from KWG/Frank.

The pipelines go in the ground and under the rivers and don’t need 98 bridges and culverts. The railroad that we studied prior to the Cliffs road proposal, may take some time to achieve social license and economic volumes from market share."

There are many advantages in adopting this big-picture strategy:

- economic: savings of $B, no upgrader, cheaper smelter, much lower operating cost for the gas fired smelter;

- engineering: pipe could be placed at the foot of the esker and cover with sand and gravel, leaving the esker corridor for future RR and service road development;

- environment: solution for environmental issues, e.g. migration of woodland caribou;

- politics: KWG can participate in the RR/road discussions, but just don't hold its breath. Let other people (govts and the FNs) to sort this out. Note the non-underlined portion of the excerpt above. Frank was quite realistic and looking way ahead in this chess game as an excellent and flexible strategist in action.

The total cost of the project looks quite economically viable, even without any contributions and/or subsidies from the govts. It will cost much less than $3.3B as proposed by CLF for BT. KWG, with a backing from a deep pocket , could have a go at BD. A couple of $B would be chump change for people like Glencore, etc.

goldhunter (just an arm-chair strategist)