Noront Resources is Still Kicking

Noront Resources (NOT:TSXV) witnessed its market cap rise above $100 million Thursday, for the second time in 2014.

Sentiment towards Noront Resources began to change in late 2013, following a key step forward in its plans to one day, eventually, develop its key assets in the Ring of Fire region in the James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario.

Just 5 days before Christmas 2013, Noront Resources Ltd. announced it had completed a coordinated Federal/Provincial Environmental Impact Statement and Environmental Assessment Report ("EIS/EA") for its Eagle's Nest Project.

This was critical for the company for a number of reasons. Noront and other company's operating in the very remote Ring of Fire region of northern Ontario will need hundreds of millions in infrastructure built to make a mining operation feasible.

Noront reported that a draft copy will be circulated for comment to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) tomorrow (December 21, 2013).

Alan Coutts, CEO of Noront, commented that, "Completion of a draft EIS/EA Report marks an important milestone for Noront." And that, "We believe that Eagle's Nest will be the first mine developed in the Ring of Fire and this brings us one step closer toward achieving that goal. We look forward to receiving comments from the provincial and federal governments as well as any other interested parties."

To read Noront's entire press release from December 20th, click here.


Coutts has been verbally confident for some time and recently purchased 350,000 shares in a company financing in late October 2013.

The shares were purchased at a price of $0.30 per share. While Noront currently trades for above $0.40 per share, at the time $0.30 was a significant premium. Noront's shares were trending lower at the time of the financing as so many junior resource stocks do late in the year. It eventually bottomed at $0.15 per share in late 2014 and is up 200% from that low.

Noront had already traded more than 700,000 shares by 1 PM EST Thursday with more than 143 individual trades on the books.

Noront had an explosion of liquidity in late February when 5 million shares exchanged hands between the 21st and 25th. The shares traded between $0.355 and $0.49 on those days and witnessed 1,176 individual trades occur. With roughly $2.1 million worth of stock traded in those three days and the average trade being worth roughly $1,850 retail investors have returned to Noront’s market.

With the retail investors warming back up to Noront, hopeful that the Canadian government will see the long term future and potential prosperity of the Ring of Fire region, its fate appears to be with the Canadian government or an unknown financier.

After more than a decade, Noront Resources is continuing to focus on the development of its high-grade Eagle's Nest nickel, copper, platinum and palladium deposit and the high-grade Blackbird chromite deposit, both of which are located in the James Bay Lowlands of Ontario.

Despite the TSX Venture entering freefall mode Thursday, down some 22 points or more than 2%, Noront Resources was up 10% to $0.435 per share. Everyone remembers Noront's run back in 2007 and 2008 to above $7 per share. Its fall from grace has been as phenomenal as its rise, but what's more noteworthy is Noront's ability to survive and continue moving forward. Noront is continuing to pursue its goal of developing the first asset in the Ring of Fire. One has to ask: if the blow up 2008 and the markets of the last 3 years haven’t derailed this company, what will?