Several months ago, Noront found itself in a difficult position.

Yes they had discovered what will likely be Canada's next Nickel Mine and an excellent chromite deposit, but they were being upstaged by a major Mining Company, Cliffs Natural Resources.

Cliffs had been slowly and systematically acquiring significant portions of Freewest and KWG. They were also working in the background to establish a rail link and roads to service this remote underdeveloped area of Northern Ontario.

Working through KWG and Canada Chrome, Cliffs had staked the lands from Nakina to the Ring of Fire and had gone so far as to post a proposed rail/road route on the KWG website. Clearly Cliffs had been negotiating with all levels of government and Ontario Northland Railway behind the scenes.

Rumour had it that Cliffs was also making serious plans to build a ferrochrome smelter in Thunder Bay. Additionally they had been working with Hydro One to determine a possible source of Electricity for their Mine/Mill at McFaulds.

Noront promoted themselves as the 'King of the Ring" because they were better funded than the competition and were further advanced with exploration activity leading to a 43-101 on their nickel and chromite deposits. They routinely bragged that they were 1-2 years ahead of all other juniors in the ring and were planning to bring their operations to the mining stage.

In spite of this outward image of superiority the board and their backers, the hedge funds, Noront was concerned that Cliffs had upstaged them and were slowly making significant inroads with infrastructure. Whoever controlled the infrastructure would generally control the entire ring.

Noront was also becoming increasingly aware that other upstart companies such as UC and Tribute had utilized state of the art airborne exploration methods to identify prospective anomalies in the ring of fire. Noront had done enough exploration work of their own in the vicinity of the upstarts' claims to understand that these anomalies were indeed very prospective. Noronts King of the Ring status could soon be seriously challenged.

At the same time the hedge fund was exerting pressure on Noront to get the sp up so their investors could recognize a profit and turn their attention to other opportunities that were passing them by. In case there were any doubts about the hedge funds considerable influence, these were the same folks that forced out founder Richard Nemis in a hostile proxy fight one year hence.

The question for Noront executives was, how can we maintain our status as the undisputed King of the Ring and at the same time get the hedge fund off their back. They knew they had to act quickly because UC and Tribute were both advancing drilling on their anomalies and Cliffs was likely to continue to buy up the other chromite deposits in the ring.

Noront understood that Cliffs would eventually want to own all the chromite deposits including their own. If Cliffs was allowed to gain full control of Black Thor, Black Label and Big Daddy, which looked inevitable, Noronts' position with respect to the chrome would be greatly diminished. They had to act before Cliffs made their next move.

Noront understood that they would eventually lose out to Cliffs no matter what they did. Cliffs had the luxury of time on their side. For them there was no urgency. Cliffs would prefer to let others do the exploration work while they,Cliffs, continued to buy up sections of the ring at relatively low prices.

Noront had one ace up their sleeve. It was the Eagle one deposit. They had concentrated their drilling efforts on eagle one after they flew ZTEM over the area and discovered that the deposit continued at depth. They were beginning to receive assay results that proved that the grades were exceptional and that the deposit was indeed open at depth and along strike. They knew that once these results were released the sp would rebound from relative lows.

This information gave Noront the advantage they needed to make a hostile bid for rival Freewest Resources with its Black Label, Black Thor and Big Daddy Chromite deposits. The knew that a bid of this nature would force a response from Cliffs and would force up the sp of Noront and Freewest, thus satisfying the hedge funds.

With their 4-1 share offer for Freewest, Noront understood that they could keep their own sp up as required simply by releasing the assay results that they had in hand.

It was a desperate, although brilliant, move by a small junior exploration company to force the hand of a major, but it worked. Cliffs was forced against their will to play a significant card in order to stay in the game.

With this one move by Noront and now Cliffs, the investing world is now alert to the possibility that the Ring of Fire is indeed a serious and major mineral resource that will become Canada's next mining project. Suddenly a major US mining company is front and center in a fight for this resource and the world is now watching.

Investors the world over that were otherwise focused on anything but the Ring of Fire will now be paying attention and committing funds to this otherwise insignificant resource play.

Neither Noront nor Cliffs has played its trump cards yet. However the strong suits belong to Cliffs by virtue of their position at the table. Cliffs will clearly own Freewest when the dust settles. However, everyone in the ring and all the institutional and retail investors will be the winners as a result of this move by Noront.

Thank you Wes Hanson....errrr Mr Irwin.

SN