SG, I will give you a quick 2 cents answer but don't interpret the answers as gospel please.

They are only my own personal observations and I don't feel qualified to give you an insiders/professional perspective.

1. Is Cliffs a Major....No. They are a big supplier of Iron Ore in North America but compared to Vale they are small. I did not look up the market caps but I would guess 10-1. Cliffs is not interested in Nickel. The want the chromite so they can further integrate into the Steel business and offer existing customers ferrochrome as well as iron. Vale will simply buy Cliffs one day.

2. Back door ways in? Obviously there are many permutations and combinations of possibilities and no one has a crystal ball. My opinion is that there still is not enough mineralization discovered in the area to make a major terribly interested at this stage. As a mining executive in Sudbury once said, if this nickel (Eagles Nest) was near the Sudbury airport, it would be out of the ground by now. The point is that the RoF is in an unserviced area with no power, roads etc. It will take years to provide this infrastructure and the majors know it. In the meantime they are busy doing their own thing and making mega $$$$.

3. Many questions in one. The majors know more about the RoF than any investor, retail or institutional. Yes Cliffs entry into RoF and their eventual plans to provide infrastructure are important. When the plans for infrastructure are firmer, the majors will increase interest.

4. Cliffs telegraphed their move into the RoF by acquiring 20% of KWG. From that point it was not IF they would make more acquisitions but when. There is not enough nickel YET to make a major lose sleep over the RoF since there is no infrastructure.

Now for what it is worth, my prediction is that there will be another major discovery in the area that will wake everyone up and speed up infrastructure development.

Secondly it will be Vale or Xstrata that will end up with the RoF because they have facilities in Sudbury Ontario.

The next major discovery COULD easily be Tribute.

Only my 2 cents worth.

SN