Agree with much of what you say, but everyone has to understand that what you find in the the ground has to meet all economic constraints to be of any value. I am not saying that what we at NOT have found is not economic in the future but it has to meet certain conditions. The earth is full of deposits that in the past have not been and still are not economic, so as investors we have to be aware of the many things that affect economic viability.

You may find good grades, but too narrow or too little to be economic. You may find lots over wide area, but too low a grade to be economic; or it may be other problems such as lack of infrastructure, politics, environmental, etc.

Lets look at NOT. The nickel ores are good actually pretty great. If the deposits had been found near Sudbury or Timmins, they would probably already been in the stage of mine planning, definitely economic, no question about it.

The problem with the ROF is that it is so far away from anything. The initial infrastructure costs, power, rail, road, etc are so high and will take so long to build, that any mine development will have to be planned for a long term operation, probably at least 20 years in order to pay and justify all this. Since NOT has a nickel sulfide ore we definitely also need to build a concentrator as well as a sulfide tailings dam and control system. This also adds to the capital costs. To pay for all this you need a decent nickel production rate(probably 30 to 50 thousand tonnes of Nickel per year) and you have to have enough ore to last for at least 20 years.

This is where the chromites may help. We can now have 2 products(and two companies) help paying for the common infrastructure needed. It will also create more jobs and provide greater incentives for governments to assist.

Not to scare people, but modern mining is on a large scale, and therefore also profits as well as costs. If you look at the last 15 years history of big mining projects they are all in the capital cost range of 2 billion plus and the ROF will be no different, if and when it goes ahead.

As investors we should look at this as opportunities. Very often deposits change owners, some succed, some fail and you can buy their assets at 25 cents to the dollar etc, again new opportunities. There is also a time factor, historically most deposits take 10-15 or more years for full development. Many large world class deposits have been known for 20 or more years before any development.

Specifically for NOT I am betting on a couple of good hits this year since that will keep the momentum going. The deposits found so far are of good economic value and similar to the Sudbury area I am expecting that many more such deposits will be found. Together they should add to the tonnage to meet the critical mass required for full scale development. But yes, it most likely will take longer that what we would like and there will be misses on the way. Only time will tell