An excellent well thought out reply, g'r, notwithstanding the delay until after the news of the last couple of days.
As most of the discussion does apply to anyone in the ROF, I will take the liberty to throw one back at you on this forum.
The stray drill core is dead, period. Bold turned it over to Noront unanalysed, and Noront connot use it as they have no way of confirming a chain of control over it. It is unusable.
Everyone, myself included, agrees the railroad has to come. But it would be virtually impossible to feed a railroad from one underground mine, which KWG does not have. It has a preliminary 43-101, INFERRING 40+mill tons, which Bold has already distanced itself from. If underground mining is going to happen, which is possible, it will be done by Noront, via their proposed infrastucture. Moe Levigne has already confirmed that the J/V proposal did not come from Noront.
Hydro coming to the ROF will provide great benefits to future developments. But it is not an absolute necessity. If the area is to be developed, it will happen with or without hydro. The proposed smelter is what will require cheap power.
Recent developments are simply round and square blocks finding their appropriate holes.
A road in, even if it is only a winter road, is absolutely mandatory
A north south road has completelty stalled for the moment. Discussions are obviously aimed at an east west route, evidenced by Marten Falls pulling out of the Matawa group, the Matawa group dropping lawsuits against the north south route, and agreeing to negotiate, and long term plans for Hydro, but hydro almost certainly has to follow some serviced route in which would obviously be the east west route.
Cliffs is now in a position where it has to deal with KWG, or fold their hand. If they do a deal, everything is a go. If not, Noront comes out at the head of the pack.
Either way, Noront wins. Kwg is still very reliant on what Cliff's decides to do. They are stronger now, but not out of the woods by any means.
And I will just ignore the final paragraph.
Best regards
K
