As someone else so accurately said...there is lots going on in the background.

Here are some other thoughts:

It seems clear that there is anouther company interested in buying FWR or some combination of RoF Companies.

If they are negotiating with Mac as he has stated, they already know the terms the Noront offer.

If they did not want to pay more than the Noront offer, they would not have started negotiations. Mac's confidence that a deal will be in the works soon attests that

Mac will be anxious to increase shareholder value while saving his own company. He may be willing to give up the chrome deposits but he will not be anxious to give up the Quest shares, Clarence Stream and the rest of the non-chrome property.

Personally I believe that Noront only included the non-RoF assets because it was a first offer and they knew they would need to make further offers. They knew they would be very lucky to have the deal closed as originally proposed.

Cliffs has commited significant time and money to acquire a share of KWG and FWR. They have also staked claims along a possible route for a railroad and/or highway.

Cliffs is a well established supplier of iron ore to the steel industry. Acqusition of the RoF chromite assets would further integrate Cliffs into the steel industry.

Clearly Cliffs is large enough and rich enough to simply wait for the Noront offer to go through and then buy the combined company. Cliffs will also be concerned that getting into a bidding war with Noront for FWR will only increase the price.

However they know that Noront is relatively small and can only afford to spend a certain amount to obtain FWR. They likely know that Noront will have great difficulty matching their offer.

As mining companies go, Cliffs' market cap is much greater than Noront but much less than Xstrata of Vale. It is entirely possible that one of these 2 giants may be backing a Cliffs offer. It is inconcevable that Xstrata would not be interested in owning the RoF.