I'm with you on question why FNC would want to do a 50/50 jv when they could likely get pretty much the same terms for a 30/70 or maybe 20/80 although for 20% Noront would likely onld do limited drilling.

Really hard to figure out but FNC's anomality is too close to DE 1 not to contain mineralization of interest. The faster it's drill tested the better and would help Noront tie up some senior mining company in a package pp. Can't see why the two companies can come to a win/win deal.

Noront had to drill another anomality on their own claim but for bargaining purposes I bet they wish they could have held off longer. If they hit another ore body on their claim it automatically indicates very high likelyhood of FNC having something and ups the price.