I’m of mixed views on today’s NRs. They are NOT what I expected nor did I get excited by them. That said there is something for everyone in the NR’s. The pumpers will point to the Blue Sky potential and the Bashers will point to lack of Ni-Cu assays results. Both are right and the NRs can be spun either way and clearly a number of members will be wondering what the Chromite results mean.

I hold a lot of NOT and take a long term view when it comes to making money on a developing play so today is still a blip on the way to an enevitable take obver. We know for some the short term drop in SP will be very painful. If the assays had shown we had hit another DE I would have been ecstatic but most of us have seen enough plays develop and they all have ups and downs that you have to live through.

The upside is that they are chasing a mineralized zone at DE2 that they hope will lead to another DE1 type deposit. The increased presence of Ni and Cu sulphides, and the horizontal separation between the sulphides and chromite bed(s) is positive. The mineralization had to feed from somewhere and tracing it back seems like a logical strategy. Only drilling and hits will tells us whether there is another DE1 at depth and they are doing lots of that.

The Chromites are intriguing but I don’t know what to make of them yet. I’ve done a fair amount of reading and it looks like you need Cr2O3 grade in the range of 40% (which the assays from one hole indicates we have). The higher the Cr/Fe ratios the better. 3:1 seems high grade and 1.5:1 seems low grade. We are sitting around 1.7:1. Hence the work that NOT is doing looking at the composition of the chromites within the bed. I have not found anyone that knows much about chromite deposits and how they are valued. For now I suspect there are lots of us that are scratching our head wondering what to make of the chromite intercepts when it comes to NOT’s value. Chromite values have appreciated greatly the past year but I have no idea of mining/processing costs or what determines what grade of chromite you can get after processing. Hopefully Genuity or one of the other analysts will step in and give us an answer as to value.

The downside: The lack of substantive Ni-Cu-PGM results in the drilling of the other Western Anomalies AT3, AT4 and AT8 raises questions about how valuable the other anomalies are. Although any hole drilled anywhere can be a mine maker the anomalies today are worth less today then they were yesterday because of the misses. It also puts pressure on the regional players to drill to prove they have something. The bashers will manipulate this to play their position. In the larger scheme of things we have misses and we will have more. At the same time we are going to have more hits. Something like DE1 does not occur in isolation and we have lots of perspective targets to work with, lots of money, lots of drills and lots of JVs.

PRB, FNC, FWR/NOT: I expect that today’s news is going to put pressure on these three to drill their anomalies sooner rather then later. It won’t be long before they have to prove they have something or let their SP take a pounding. I really like the northern anomalies (I hold shares in all three) inside the RFI for their proximity to DE1 and signature. Hopefully we will see drilling on all three very soon and lots of results from the other ROF players that will drive NOT's share price up.

… Been There