Sorry that I tought you had no experience, but this clearly shows the difference between base metal mines and gold and/or diamonds.

Yes the Victor mine has been very successful and is a good start for many things related to the ROF, however there are huge differences:

Gold and diamond mines you find all over the place in very remote areas and yes they can be small. Base metal mines, no. There are hardly 20 in canada including nickel, copper,lead and zinc. Why is this:

Gold and diamond mines produce a very expensive product that can be flown out while base metal mines produce a product of fairly low value that can't be flown out. Base metal mines depend on tonnage and they need all year shipping(plus minus some small interruptions like the Raglan mine).

Base metal mines(at least sulfides) have huge environmental issues with them and huge costs associated with their processing.

Base metals need several expensive steps after they have been mined out of the ground, not like gold and diamond(they also need some but very little in comparison)

Base metal sulfides will generate SO2 that has to be collected(not completely but getting strickter all the time) and converted into sulfuric acid. This acid has to be transported and sold to some market. Its handling and transport is also expensive, environmentally sensitive, and yes sulfuric acid freezes in most northern climates during winter times.

Because of these but also other issues base metal mines are few and far between, they tend only to be economic if huge, and they need good infrastructure.

As I said before for the ROF all these issues are managable, but for nickel so far there is way to little prooved, while the chrome seems to be what will drive this forward.