First Point Receives Commitment from Cliffs Natural Resources for Continued Work on the Decar Nickel-Iron Alloy Property

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Nov. 1, 2010) - First Point Minerals Corp.(TSX VENTURE:FPX)("First Point" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that Cliffs Natural Resources ("Cliffs") has notified First Point of its commitment to provide funding for the second year of its option agreement on the Decar Nickel-Iron Alloy property, located northwest of Fort St. James, British Columbia.

Pursuant to the Decar Option Agreement of November 25, 2009, Cliffs will commit an additional US$500,000 over the coming months for exploration, including the investigation of mineral processing methods for the recovery of the nickel-iron alloy discovered at the Decar property. Representative samples from several tonnes of drill core will be used for testing. Additional funding may be available from Cliffs for further drilling and other exploration programs based on the results of these studies.

"The encouraging results of this year's drilling and exploration program at the Decar project and Cliffs commitment to provide further funding are very positive signals to First Point and its shareholders," said Dr. Peter Bradshaw, President & CEO of First Point.

The scope of the 2010 work programme included ten drill holes totalling 2,573 metres in the Baptiste and Sidney mineralized targets. Seven of those holes contained long, continuous intersections of nickel-iron alloy mineralization, with nickel in alloy grades ranging from 0.105% to 0.147%, over lengths of 163 to 328 metres (refer to First Point news releases dated September 22ndand 29th, 2010, and October 19th, 2010). Under the option agreement, the first year of committed work expenditures is US$1million. The first ten months of expenditures, as at September 30, 2010, totalled approximately CAD$1.4 million funded by Cliffs.

September 25, 2010 | Iron Ore, Mining Production, steel industry

Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. announced today that its Board of Directors has approved a capital project at its Koolyanobbing Complex in Western Australia. The project, which requires approximately $320 million Australian dollars of incremental capital investment, is expected to allow the Koolyanobbing Complex to produce approximately 11 million tonnes annually...Cliffs stated that recently acquired mineral tenements located near its existing Asia Pacific Iron Ore deposits will enable the Company to continue potentially increasing the current resource base.

Duncan Price, Cliffs’ senior vice president and managing director, Asia Pacific Iron Ore, commented, “We are enthusiastic about the expected organic growth these improvements will generate for our Asia Pacific Iron Ore operations. We acknowledge the support of, and effort by, the Western Australian Government in overcoming significant policy uncertainties, which had delayed key permits.”

Adding on from SG.

I haven't even begun cross checking the names referenced from links. I suspect if I do that, many are contributing to the same stew and Champion will become a bidding war. Our question is, what is the trigger that will get the first offer. Once that happens we are off the the races. If you put yourself in a major's mindset, what are you waiting for? What could Smith do to preemp the war by placing Lac Lamalee up for sale. Could that be the trigger?