They find they hit a hole with 4 oz; a few people that also know, call a few people, pretty soon, people start trading on this information, especially given the extremely high profile of NOT lately.

 Can you imagine if that kind of rumor/story hit the markets (or this board)?  So, possibly because of some loose lips, to be safe, NOT asks for a halt.  Maybe there would have been no frenzy on the rumor, maybe there would have, but if there had been and the stock rose $1 yesterday, imagine how it would have looked today when the news hit.  RN appears to want to keep things as clean as possible, but still show appropriate excitement over the progress of NOT, as well he should.

As to the person who felt the NR re the halt yesterday should not have specified Windfall, well c'mon, let's be glad our management has a sense of fairness (the TSX would no doubt have insisted, anyway).

 Unfortunately, the timing was a day early for the halt, I would have much prefered to be shut down today!