When you speak of Noront proceeding as a stand-alone development (khareema and CMP) I am reminded of herbertwiebe's pet proposal to start by trucking out high grade ore, thus short-circuiting the complex and expensive process of establishing a full-scale mine.

He has propounded this idea on several occasions and to my uneducated mind it sounded plausible. I can't recall anyone ever posting a rebuttal of this scheme or even going into the pros and cons.

Perhaps herb's ideas deserve to be aired further as I sure would like to find an alternative to the massive dilution full-scale mine development would inevitably bring. The B of D keeps making noises about going ahead on their own, but maybe we should rather pin our hopes on a friendly and lucrative takeover or a JV with a deep pockets entity. Another good idea I recall (forget who raised it) would be to partner with a First Nations body. This might work with Government backing.

All conjecture and IMHO.

Best wishes, O.F.