As to how many mines we end up with, that was my answer to another poster.

I do not pay much heed to today's flavour re this or that metal, as long as a venture brings profits.
For the value of Noront's metals, there are two ways to looking at them.
One is the total quantity of a metal and therefore it's value in ground, and the other is the quality of the deposit hence the minability and profit that can be realized from operations.
For the first, quantity means little if it is so dispersed that mining it is not profitable. So I pay attention to the profitable portion now, and when it may be profitable in a reasonable future due to rising metal prices.

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.

I do not know where to place the chromite in this scenario, i.e. profit vs expenditure to obtain that profit.
Gold, there is too little.
Vanadium?. Time dependent on battery developments I presume.

Speaking about forgotten metals - Thorium.
The company was supposed to do some reassays for this and related metals in some cores because they found interesting quantity in one or more of past cores. That was over a year ago?
There are small amounts but due to it's high price it could have paid part of the cost of processing the ore, not to mention whether thorium could contribute to clear profits.

Were those assays ever done? Or done but insufficient found to pursue.

Nice to have theses debates all over again due to better prospects.