Here are Tau's 5 posts...you do your own DD and see if he is a basher...maybe MJ or DW again...

Dec 21st: As a share holder I am getting worried about the capital costs involved in bringing in the infrastructure required(roads, power, rail?) to such a very remote location. The find must probably be close in size to that either of Sudbury or Norilsk to make it worth while, a Voisey's Bay may not do. I wonder if anyone has figured out the total market cap. of all the players involved in that area. A major would probably only get involved if it can control the whole area. Capital costs must be in the order of 5 billion for roads, infrastructure, mine and mill.

Dec 21st: The only mills I am aware of that can treat this ore(with high precious and platinum group metals which make this ore very valuable) would be those in Sudbury or possibly also in Thompson, Manitoba. If there is any closer that would be great. In my humble opinion, to be feasible a plant should produce at least 50,000 tonnes per year of nickel. At let us say an average grade of 1.5% nickel this is about 3.3 million tonnes of ore per year. Let us say they can ship 300 days per year this leads to 11,000 tonnes per day of ore transported on roads. I don't think that is economic nor environmentally acceptable. I therefore see no other choice but to build a mill next door.

In terms of the value of the ore we have to be careful. Over the next 5 years several new plants will come on stream(Ravensthorpe, Goro, Koniambo, Voisey's Bay, Unca Puma, Barro Alto, Skye?, plus low grade FeNi blast furnaces in China). What will be the projected metal prices with all this new capacity? nobody knows.

Although not directly comparable, what we know is that the capital costs of new plants such as the Konimbo and Goro are now estimated in the order of 3 billion, while they were only half that 5 to 10 years ago.

Dec 22:

To get a mine in production you need grade, tonnage and location, as well as a decent price of your products.

For NOT the nickel grade(plus other valuables) is more or less proven.

Tonnage is still lacking. For nickel laterite ores, the minimum tonnage is in the range of 30 to 40 million tonnes for operating mines, and go as high as more than 200 million tonnes at grades of about 1.5% Ni or more. You just don't spend huge infrastructure money on a mine that lasts only a couple of years. I guess that annual ore processing should for the sake of scale of economy be at least 3 million tonnes per year.

Location I am not sure about. Land shipment is very expensive compared to bulk ocean transport. Loading and unloading also cost money. Voisey's Bay is good since the ore body is very close to a good ocean harbour. You also need to build a huge tailings dam for the rejects from the concentrator. The ground and topography should be ok for that purpose. Power, roads, rail may also be very expensive. Shipment of your nickel concentrate(about 10-20% Ni depending on the mill and the ore mineralogy) also is a big issue. Lots of heavy trucks on the roads

Furute price of nickel, copper, pgm's etc are uncertain and depends mainly on the growth of the world economy. No large mining company will use the present(and very high) prices in their economic evaluations of future projects that may come on stream in 10 years or so. They will look at the past and try to use a fairly concervative price prediction.

These are just my personal opinions and carry no weight

Dec 22:

Sorry if I confused you, yes in Canada all nickel comes from sulfides. I used laterities as an example to show required tonnages. It is just that there are much more public data on laterites, also because they are more easily quantified since they are surface deposits. Economic nickel sulfide deposits are extremely rate. The good thing about most sulfide deposits is that they thend to grow in size after they are started up(look at Sudbury).

In terms of cost, you are wrong. Today about 40% of all world nickel comes from laterites(the rest sulfides) while for new production more than 60% will come from laterites over the next 5 years. The economics is specific for each deposit, again grade-tonnage and location.

The only reason I posted a few comments on this forum was to hopefully gain some knowledge about certain issues I have with this stock. To even think that some of my comments actually will affect the stock price would be pretty arrogant and stupid. I know that if you are heavily invested things may get a little emotional, but even then facts and knowledge should help you.

In any case, to make you happy, I will not post any new posts at this forum, since for me NOT will remain a hold until I am convinced that there is enough ore(>50 million tonnes) or evidence for that. Again, this is my oppinion only, do your own DD

Dec 24th:

Both of you are either paid pumpers, emotionally in love with NOT with lots on money invested, or either paranoid/stupid, or you just have fun being shitt disturbers. Get a life, both of you must have posted at least 10 junk posts over the last 24 hrs. If you can not accept people with other views, you will have the blind leading the blind. This trashing going on only scares away new potential investors, and it also will keep people with real info and insights away. This helps no one. Sure, there is errouneous and mistaken info posted, but from what I see this is not purposely done, only that people just do not know all the facts and tricky issues involved. It is up to each individual to evaluate, analyse and carry out required DD.

Tau...please give up this Alias...like mining junkie, aucontraire, doublewide and madams your colors are revealed!!

Glorieux