"The idea of NOT and KWG forming an alliance is interesting,"

Indeed BUT it would have to be a true allience or merging, imho. None of one buying out the other, that usually is favourable to one at the expense of the other.
Take the market caps of both companies and exchange the shares accordingly.

Of course it would not need to be between just these two companies but any other smaller players in the Ring. By smaller I mean everone with the exception of Cliffs.

Such unions are needed and I would say necessary due to the cost savings in exploration and development, not to mention clout that comes with a larger entity. Note how everyone took notice once Cliffs appeared on the scene.

Noront is an obvious partner to anyone because of the large land hold and having some of the best already known resources in hand.

That seems most logical to me, however that happens too rarely in the market place.