Not sure if this has been posted as I have been away and just too busy to read everything lately but nice to see coverage in Metal:

Noront looks to cash in on “Ring of Fire”

LONDON (Metal-Pages) 11-Nov-09. The “Ring of Fire” located in the McFaulds lake area in northern Ontario, Canada could become one of the major metal mining areas in the world, delegates at Metal Bulletin’s recent International Ferro-alloys conference in Monte Carlo were told.

Wes Hanson, president and CEO of Canada’s Noront resources said that the company had made a number of discoveries in the area including the Eagle’s Nest high grade nickel, copper and pgms deposit and the Blackbird Chromite deposit, Canada’s first Chromite Resource. In addition they have also discovered the Thunderbird vanadium deposit and the Triple J gold deposit.

Noront, which is quoted on the TSX Venture exchange in Toronto, raised $25 million in a financing share issue in August, will use the funds to do further exploration work focusing at the outset on the Eagle’s Nest and Blackbird deposits.

In order to consolidate its position in the area Noront has made an all share offer worth about $90 million for rival metals explorer Freewest Resources. Freewest holds the Black Thor, Black Label and Big Daddy chromite deposits close to Noront’s properties in the “Ring of Fire,” the offer expires on November 18.

The development of the deposits will present some challenges, not least of which is transport of the finished product as the area is low lying marshland located 300 km from the nearest road. Noront has hired engineering and construction group SNC-Lavalin to complete an Infrastructure and transportation Study on the site. Options being considered include road transport either winter or all season, slurry pipelines and hover barges. This study is currently being finalised and the first phase of the metallurgy is being completed. A scoping study will be initiated next year with an NI 43 101 resource estimate completed in Q4 2010, followed by the completion of a feasibility study in Q1 2011.

Now, our SP does suck but if we develop as fast as they say here with a feasibility study completed in less than a year and a half, the longs will be very happy.

Glorieux