Cliffs is a big company that produces products (iron pellets, iron nuggets and coal) for the world wide steel industry. Now they are getting into the chromite business. In their purchase of FWR they made a presentation that projected half of their future revenues coming from chromite mining in the ROF. They have now secured all of the chromite in the ROF except for Noront's very large deposit.

Noront has plans to mine chromite along with the high grade copper, nickel and pms at their Eagle 1 deposit. Noront will likely be producing from their underground mine before Cliffs get their chromite open pit mine in operation. Noront, by being first off the mark, is in a potential position to capture a significant percentage of the north american chromite market thereby placing Cliffs chromite strategy in an unsecured position.

Why wouldn't Cliffs purchase an interest in Noront's chromite to secure their strategy?

Cliffs is a very old company with expertise in the steel industry and they want to remain an independent. To date they have refrained from taking an interest in the base metal industry. If they made a run at Noront's base metals they would risk losing their independence.

Recent market activity may be supporting this guess. BMO was on Cliffs side in the FWR purchase - they have recently been helping to depress NOT's share price.