I drove from Huntsville to North Bay the other day. A wonderful 120 km. of fast-trak highway completion that will still result in well over ten years for that stretch. And every piece of supporting infrastructure and requisite services were already at hand. The real cost is unknown, and really, who cares.

Take a blank letter size sheet from your printer and lay it sideways. Draw a line 10 inches straight across the middle.Divide the line into 6 portions, like a rail track. Mark the portions left to right: Ownership; Infrastructure Planning/Approval; Dispute Resolution; Actual Construction; Mine Development and Construction; Startup. Now put a number under each section, your best guess as to the number of years for each allowing for concurrent activities. Do that for NOT. Perhaps do it for FWR, and a third for NOT/FWR combined. Next, take the NOT sheet, put $300 million on the left (approx current market cap at average price last three months). Add a number for each section including interest and an appropriate risk return. Add up all seven numbers.

The exercise is somewhat humbling and begins to really focus one's thinking on what are real world determinants VS. what is conjecture and speculation. Wes and Mac have no idea what the answers are either. Their job is to make the pot at the end of the multi year rainbow look so big that a major sees the $300 million as the least important number in the mix. That is no small task.