Hello Edgy,

Totally agreed with your statement "HOWEVER (and I emphasize with capital letters) I expect serious problems with the native communities fighting among themselves as to who gets it's way and finally with government buraucrats and the miners."

This is key, politics considerations rule supreme. The government(s) will have to get this done right first before anything else. Money is not a problem for deep pockets, given the potential profit of chromite operation (if they can get it out of the RoF). Yes, the same problem CLF was pointing out (and rightly so).

But, I have some trouble following your (cost) analysis.

- When we compare the cost of the NOT EW and the KWG EW (the Alternate), the assumption is that they start from Hwy 808 which is expected to be taken care of (upgrading, etc) by the Ontario government. From the information indicated on the KWG map. Bruce can verify the info, and other posters have published the link to this map.The info indicates that both EW roads cost about the same around $100-130M, with NOT slightly more expensive (with the portion from Webequie Jct to the site as a permanent road, including a bridge over the Muketei River). NOT was expecting some subsidy (50%) from the Ontario government for the portion from Hwy 808 to Webequie Jct, since this would serve the 4 FN communities, the ones supporting NOT proposal. Also, these 2 roads are not superhighways for monster trucks compared to the private road proposed by CLF at a cost of over $1B (0.6B from CLF and 0.6B from Ontario).

- The NOT or KWG EW roads are "regular" permanent roads, perhaps one lane for each direction, wide enough to accommodate moderate trucks (say-40 tonne, to haul Ni out, or ver high grade chromite producs out). For the regular chromite concentrates, even DSO, the RR would be the least expensive to haul them out, or having a super highway for monster trucks (say 80-tonne) at 4 minutes apart, hence nobody would want to venture in that highway with a private car running the risk of getting squished by one of those monster trucks ("right of weight" prevails in this situation). In my vision, the NS transportation could accommodate the RR and a small service road alongside for private cars and service trucks.

- If operating costs are considered then for bulk material the NS RR and a small service road would come out as #1, even though the initial cost would be higher ($1.5B?). Shipping cost by RR would be a lot cheaper than trucking. At one point NOT was talking about an option to switch to RR for Ni (and later for Chromite) shipping to significantly reduce the cost.

Just my opinion.

goldhunter