Hi goldhunter,

I state in my post that "A North South all-seasons road (in purple) will not be built." to avoid confusion. That map was released with Noront's CEAA EA update in January of 2013 before the OMLC easement decision.

There is no need for a North South service road. In many places, there is not enough room to accommodate both 'any form of a road' and a rail side by side. The JBLPA NS railway can be built and maintained without a service road. All power and communication services can be delivered through the East West service road.

Noront will not use a slurry pipe for transportation of the nickel concentrate. As Frank stated in the first Agoracom interview with George, it wouldn't make sense to build the EW route to have it end at a slurry pipe for the last 82km. (Use of a slurry pipe would mean that in many segments there would be no form of road.)

It is very interesting that the general public, the politicians and investors still misunderstand the Ring of Fire.

1) $10B nickel and $50B chromite is just the tip of the iceberg
2) Without advanced acceptance of the JBLPA north south railway, there will be no ROF development, no nickel mines, no chromite mines, no EW all-season road from Pickle Lake.

Ontario and Canada could not justify investing the more than $1B in an EW all-season road upgrade which will never be able to deliver the chromite to market at world competitive prices.

They could justify that initial investment if it led to an economic, competitive, environmentally sustainable "means to an end" business solution where the $50B chromite was delivered by a direct NS rail route.

Regards,
LB