Edgy,

You said "As for the second, Nickel is king due to the return on operations.
I repeat a rough comparison.
For every $1.20 or so per ton of ore put into operating a mine at Eagle you get a total return of 6$+, of which 3$ from nickel, about $1.10 from copper, $1.05 from platinum and about $0.85 from palladium. This is a very rich deposit to which PMs contribute only a third. Thus my deemphasis of PMs. This one being very profitable, the pay back for construction is quick even if we pay our fair share for infrastructures such as transportation and power."

Your reasoning above to say that Ni is king is quite interesting since it would take into account the cost to process different kinds of metals. If one just want to have a general picture of what the "relative value" of each metal in the mix of ore then a quick back of the envelope calculation using the information available in NOT NR 23 Aug 2011 (11 M tonnes of ore, etc...) and current price for each metal (different than assumed by NOT, but not that much) and the following results can be obtained (feel free to verify my math).

Relative value of NOT NPV (in simple term)

- Ni: 62%

- Cu: 14%

- Pt: 10%

- Pd: 12%

- Au: 2%

So, Ni is king at 62% compared to 38% for the rest which is about the same as 2/3 versus 1/3. For NOT I would also say that NOT = Nickel, the roast beef. The rest is gravy.

I would leave chromite aside as well, due to the potential of DSO which may prove quite lucrative.

goldhunter