This post was meant as a rebuttal to JohnDefur and it does do this very well but that is not why I am reposting it here, as you all will see, it has a great deal of important info in it. Enjoy!

Lar, hope you do not mind me posting it here, I see it as very important info for NOT shareholders as well!

Glorieux

<sigh> JD, ordinarily I don't comment on your posts because you want to fight with me, rather than think and debate with me, and it hasn't ever worked the way I'd like it to be. I don't know what contributes to your obsession with me, or your apparently insatiable need to put me down as a person, but it's unhealthy, John. At the very least, it draws your attention away from more important concerns. I've asked you to drop it, and you won't. Agoracom has asked you to drop it, and you won't. I leave the situation in their capable hands, at this point in time. Good luck with it.

What triggered me to reply to this thread was the following statement that you made: "....my posts are some of the most read here on AGO, because they are totally accurate and informative...." Let's hold that thought up to the light of day, shall we? Let's do some reality testing, on just one of his posts. Going forward, John's comments (bolded) are from the original post in this thread. My comments are in normal font.

Let me first set the record straight on a few his distortions,,, Chrome is/has been fluctuating over the last 5 years, just like every other metal,,. take NI, it was over $20…Chrome was near $900/ton, about 3 years ago, it collapsed like every other base metal, and is now on the rebound $300 to $400…

Information about the chrome market is very difficult to obtain. And much of what is available is proprietary. You have to pay for it, and they retain the rights to it. For example, at Noront's first shareholder luncheon, a very thorough and informative part of the presentation was all about chromium markets and prices. That information was stricken from the record of the event, because it's proprietary. Because of the difficulty in obtaining chromite/ferrochrome market information, I started buying it. For example, over the weekend, I posted information about the current CFR China (CFR = cost (of ore) plus ocean freight shipping, i.e. shipping paid by vendor) price for metallurgical chromite. I traced specific purchases of Turkish ore (2.7 Cr:Fe ratio) to the CFS settlement price, and reported both. On Monday, ICDA data was released that confirmed that Turkish ore was landed at Chinese ports at the exact price I'd given. That took a lot of my time, and a little money, to find just pieces of the puzzle. I spent some more time digging last night, and I'll now address John's quote, above.

What I found was that the CFR China ports price three years ago was stable at $140-145 US dollars/tonne. There was a very brief run-up in both chromite ore and ferrochrome prices in late summer 2008, not three years ago. I found one spot trade for $880/tonne, FOB South Africa. One trade does not a market make. One month later, it was 1/4 of that peak price. We know what happened to resource valuations in late 2008. It put my portfolio 78% in the hole. Need I say more about the metals market?

As I said, I posted actual spot trade valuations for Turkish metallurgical grade chromite over the weekend. The actual range of prices I discovered was $185-210/tonne. I reported the highest value, because I didn't want to bias the value downwards; I gave the best case. My message was simply that $300/tonne was not realistic, at current market prices. What the market price will be in future, is not something I would try to predict. My crystal ball remains cloudy.

We know that SPQ’s metallurgical tests yielded CR03 of marketable rates, so will FWR’s Chrome…SO it most certainly is “marketable”…

Oh dear me, I was very specific about the information I reported about the Spider metallurgical study. Micon are chromite experts, and I was drawing information directly from the 43-101 compliant technical report that they completed for Spider Resources. The lab-bench testing revealed that they were able to upgrade the chromium oxide percentage to above the 40% benchmark via two-stage concentration (gravity/flotation), but that the Cr:Fe ratio remained unchanged at 1.83 (salable yes, but not metallurgical grade), and that the silica content in the concentrate exceeded maximum industry contaminant standards. I gave you my source. If you think you know better than Micon, then write them a letter and express your disagreement with them.

I further discussed Freewest's recent NR in the context of this 43-101 compliant technical report. The range of Cr:Fe values reported lay between 1.36-1.99, with a median value below that of the ore subjected to metallurgical testing by Spider. Marketable isn't the issue, John. Marketable as what? Refractory grade ore (i.e. Cr:Fe below 2) does not obtain prices that are the same as metallurgical grade ore, at the very least.

Pls don’t get caught in his web of disinformation, Cliff’s is the MAJOR and most knowledgeable of “marketing” the Chrome, and they are exceedingly positive on this project…The actual marketing oft the Chromite might be 3 to 5 years away, and Chromite might be back UP to $800…

First off, I'm simply collating and reporting other people's information. I didn't generate any of it.

I don't know how anyone can know what Cliffs is thinking. All I know is that there is not yet a Cliffs counter-offer on the table.

From a point in time beginning at the completion of full feasibility study, mine projects in Canada tend to require five years or more, before commissioning occurs. The exceptional case might be a three year timeline. And that's from the point of a FS, which itself typically takes two years or more. As to whether metallurgical grade chromite goes to $800/tonne, my crystal ball remains cloudy. But we're not talking metallurgical grade here, in any case. This ore can certainly be processed to ferrochrome, but that would require extra capital and processing cost inputs. The cost of those inputs is what reduces the value of the ore itself.

Chromite is used to reinforce steel for roads bridges almost all infrastrucrure, and the world, India,China etc are still growing and will continue to grow, even if the USA has a double dip down…remember Japan, 10 years of recession, but the rest of the world was growing and in need of raw materials to grow thei economies…

Chromite is of no use for reinforcing steel. Chromium metal is used for corrosion resistance, not tensile strength. If chromium steel is used for infrastructure, it would increase costs dramatically, and lower the tensile strength of the steel, meaning more of it would be needed than the cheap stuff. Again, the crystal ball thing.

Also, one cannot compare FWR and jvs Chromite deposits which will eventually amount to about 125 MILLIONS TONS of marketable Chromite ,you do the math at $300 or $600 dependiing at market conditions…IT”S BILLIONS OF $$$......

Compare to what? You have not even provided the referrent. Moreover, in situ tonnes never equates to marketable tonnes. The offer is current now, so you should use current pricing for your math. Price it now, and then invoke your crystal ball.

And let’s add the PGEs and Ni.Cu.

What PGEs? What Ni/Cu? Just because some PGE has been found in chromite assays, that is not an indication that it is recoverable. For decades now, the best minds on the planet have been trying to figure out how to capture the PGE that is locked into South African chromite ores and slags. Right now, standard smelting technology rejects any PGE ore that is greater than 11% chromite. There are pilot plants springing up to try and show that the PGE can be economically recovered from reject ores and slags, but even those projects have not demonstrated the economics. If it costs you more to get it than you can get for it, it ain't gonna happen. And again, what Ni/Cu?

Now with NOT’s…NOT has a tiny pod of which ¾ of it is disseminated and patchy Chrome, while only ¼ is actually massive Chrome…IF E1 is not profitable their Chrome is most certainly NOT..

Tiny? I'll wait for the 43-101 compliant technical report, thanks. Tiny or not, the grade is almost purely metallurgical, being well above the Cr:Fe threshold of 2 for the majority of the samples assayed.

If you've paid attention to anything that Noront said, they've maintained that the economics of their world-class grade chromite still depends on the Eagle 1 resource.

NOT admitted that they cannot make $ with Ni at E1 at it’s present pricing…therefore not economical

No. At the bottom of the market, it wasn't economic. Current market prices for the metals in question are pretty similar to the 5-year trailing average prices used to develop the 43-101 compliant report on the E1 project. That report also included sensitivity analyses, to show the impact of market prices on the viability of the project. Check it yourself, John. The project, as envisioned, is almost assuredly viable right now. And all that was before they went deep.

But let's go back to your chromite assumptions. You've been projecting market price increases for chromite, despite the fact that chromite ore prices have been falling since the beginning of the year. And yet, despite the fact that the prices of the recoverable minerals at Eagle 1 are all rising this year, you apply a different set of assumptions. You not only fail to give Noront's project any credit for rising metal prices, you also compare in situ tonnes to recoverable tonnes. You're comparing an orange tree seedling to an apple tree ready to fruit.

I have two bits of advice for you, John.

1. Verify your data, then post. And maybe you can achieve what you already believe that you have, i.e. credibility.
2. Stay away from personal commentary. It doesn't diminish the other party, John.

Lar