I wonder if there is much interest from majors in the area as it currently stands, fragmented. I would think that rather than getting into a bidding war with Cliffs for some of the smaller players, if I was a major, I'd rather just wait for Cliffs to consolidate everything without competition, and then buy Cliffs outright. A nice tidy package, and they've already done all the work.

When you think about the value of Cliffs, under $10b, it isn't that much of a stretch. Look at a company like Xstrata. Their 2009 revenues were almost $25b. Cliffs wouldn't be an insignificant acquisition for them, but it wouldn't be a stretch.