Speaking to a Reuters reporter at a conference in Brazil yesterday, the CEO of Vale (CVRD), one of the largest iron ore miners and suppliers in the world, said that he forecast their iron ore sales to be stable this year because he saw "only a slight decrease in Chinese production."

Link is: http://af.reuters.com/article/metals...

Advised by other reports, we know that the Chinese are doing a lot of infrastructure work this year, and anticipate a continued 8% economic growth.

To build the bridges, pipelines, telecommunications and other infrastructure they will need not only iron, but chromite and/or nickel to mix with the iron to obtain the stainless and specialty steels needed for this infrastructure. South Africa, the largest supplier of chromite by far, is losing its ability to provide sufficient chromite at a reasonable price. Also, South Africa is becoming more politically unstable.

This means that the Chinese, as well as those who supply the Chinese, are going to be looking more intently for supplies of chromite where it is abundant, where it will be reasonably inexpensive to mine, and in a politcally stable and mining friendly country. That's is why the Chinese (and major suppliers to the Chinese), per other reports, are sniffing around the Ring of Fire and looking at companies like Noront, et al.

With Cliffs already buying into company ownership in the area, there should be greater impetus put on the competitors to not waste too much time in getting ownership in the companies with proven resources. We may not have to wait as long as some think before we get some majors trying to buy us out.