This I believe is the real issue. Lets say there are 20 more pods in the Not claims and every pod is worth $10 per share to a major on a buy out.

Now we have found the first and we now have the attention of the majors who will all want this property. Any major at this point could say here is $10 per share and they would now own Noront with or without Sir Richards blessings. Our advantage, we are in the middle of no where and there are costs in developement that make us a wait and see take over. So the question is how do we prove to the majors we are worth 20 times what we have today before we become economical for a take over by a major.

Answer we prove to all the majors we have those 20 pods all worth atleast a $10 per share value per pod in a take over. Noront not only faces a cost issue it also faces a time issue. Hence bring in partners that will incur the cost and be able to prove up the resource at the same time. This identifies the true value of our resource quickly so that when the majors buy we will have been able to identify the resource as close to its true value as is possible before what I believe will be a take out with or with out Sir Richards blessing.

Bottom line, I would rather have halve the value of the total resource, than to give away undiscovered resource on the claims owned by Not.

Just my humble opinion on this and any other JV's Sir Richard decides are in our best interest.