Dear Prof. K

Thanks for your compliments. But, I think your marking scheme was too strict, especially on the factual in formation (only 3 for facts...what???). I would not argue about the score of 12 for enthusiasm though.

In and attempt to persuate you to change your mind, below I put a few more facts on the table for your consideration.

1. Ni price is much higher than that of ferrochrome (and of course chromite), in addition to the smaller tonnage of NI concetrate to ship out, as discuss in the previous post.

2. Big money, some $1.8 B, is required to for a "to-be-built smelter" somewhere in the Sudbury (Capreol?) area as per CLF plan.

3. NOT, for its Ni component (again leaving the chromite stuff out which is not required to suport the argument of a stand-alone Ni operation), does not have a plan to build a Nickel smelter. It would ship the 10% concetrate, by rail after trucking the stuff down to the railhead, to one of the smelters in the Sudbury area (Vale, Xstrata) for refining. This would avoid the up-front capital cost and on-going operating costs of a smelter. It would be more economical and "headache-free" just to pay the rent in this case.

4. This brought up an interesting point...like they say "waving a red flag in front of a bull": Vale and/or Xstrata may want just to gobble up the entire NOT (not just the furnace rental fees), refine the stuff in its own furnace and sell the end product to Baosteel.

5. Another scenario: With the combined power of the 3 majors above CLF better watch out since these 3 may want to band together to expand their influence in chrome and Fe in addition to Ni.

Would these facts be enough for you to change the fact score to something like 8, for an average of (12+8)/2 = perfect score of 10?

goldhunter