It ain't over till the fat lady sings. Who is accumulating the shares? No one seems to know. But even if Cliffs gets FWR, it ain't over, even for the NOT chromite. When I saw the 43-101 released, I was a bit upset.

It has been my experience that they always disappoint. Overall grades are always less than intercepts in a core because you can't mine selectively. The tonnage is never what people have been conditioned to expect. The fact that it is a 43-101 gives the perception we have a finite tonnage and there is no more.
However, having read the press release, I can see the logic, just not sure it could have helped at all with our takeover situation. The 8.7 million tonnes is low. However, 225,000t of ferrochrome needs two furnaces, which obviously needs proportionately less funds than what Cliffs is proposing. That amount of ferrochrome needs 100 to 120 MW of power, which may present some cheaper manageable power alternatives at the ROF. If they produce ferrochrome on site, we are only transporting 225,000t per year which can be taken out seasonally without much infrastructure. This amount of production is not going to upset the global balance that we all agree can get out of control. $500,000,000 per year sounds like pretty good revenue for a small operation like that. Plus, both the Eagles Nest and the chromite is being mined underground which although is more expensive, is very selective and you dont have to move three or four times the waste as ore. You also have synergistic equipment and interlectual capitol for both orebodies. I am not convinced that FWR has a lot of tonnage that can be mined open pit because of the amount of waste and overburden that has to be moved. A quick calculation shows about 4 m3 of waste for every m3 of ore down to the 165m depth. However, we have no 43-101 to provide any tangible information.

Keep your glass half full, there is more to come.