Edgy,

You said to GM:"I remind you that Noront with it's nickel ore is concentrating the ore before it is turned into a slurry for piping. I do not know if that would also be done or possible for chromite ore."

NOT pipe:

This was NOT plan when it was thinking about transporting the Ni concentrate down the road from Webequie Jct to Pickle Lake. Currently, this road is an ice road, and NOT proposed to upgrade it to an all season road for year round shipment of Ni concentrate). If the pipe line was not in the plan then NOT would need to build at least an ice road for the last 100km from Webequie Jct to the mine (@~$18M?). It would seem that NOT would need to build this portion anyway, if NOT decides to have a head start (assuming that it has the EA permit) to truck up heavy equipment for building the mine, say during the frozen few months this winter (2015).

- Option 1 (no slurry pipe): With these 2 sections of the ice road, NOT could mine the Ni, stockpile the concentrate and truck it down to the south using the ice road (for 2-3 months?). But, this may not be considered economical by Alan Coutts (may be not).

- Option 2 (with slurry pipe): With a slurry pipe (at the cost of about~$100M, I am guessing here, but it's not cheap considering insulated pipes, heavy duty pumps, diesel generators (at Webequie) for the facility there including dryers to dry the concentrate before loading to the trucks. Also, Alan would need to think about the life of the Ni mine (11 years?), and what to do with that pipe afterward? The concentrate for the pipe would be at high enough Ni concentration (say >10%) to reduce the bulk for trucking. So, the pipe for Ni is a fancier (and costly?) way to bring Ni concentrate from the mine to the other side of the Muketei River (Webequie) instead of trucking. Alan has probably gone through all this (and other factor such as support from the local FN) before considering option 3 below.

- Option 3, going south from the RoF through Marten Falls: The outspoken Chief Moonias proposed an ice road from Marten Falls to the RoF and NOT supported this. It seems that Alan want to have a plan B. He could use the existing ice road system from the Nakina area to Marten Falls and Marten Falls to the RoF to get the heavy equipment up to the RoF for building the mine. Perhaps, Chief Moonias could get the permit faster than Alan.

KWG pipe:

- Slurry for Gas Super Converter located in the south: This pipe is not the like the NOT pipe for Ni concentrate. It's designed to transport chromite ore from the RoF to the other end (Nakina area). Chromite ore would be turned into slurry which is sent down the pipe to in a Gas Super Converter some 300km south to make value-added products (much higher price). There chromite would be drained of water, but may not have to be completely dried before feeding into the Converter, since the drying would be done in the Converter (just like roasting in a gas flame). For NOT pipe, the Ni concentrate would be required to be completely dried (at Webequie Jct) to reduce the weight for trucking). Process engineering experts would need to weigh in the add substract to what I am saying here, but my understanding is that the chromite in the slurry does not need to exceed a certain grade. Raw ore ground to required particle sizes for slurry transporation would be acceptable.

- DSO: Perhaps, KWG would wait for the RR to be available before considering shipping out the DSO for direct sale to others, if transporation of DSO by pipeline is not feasible. However, the strategy of making value-added products for higher price would look a lot more attractive for the Canadian economy ("cooking with gas" technology development, "greener" industrial solution, job retention in the country, taxes for the governments, etc).

goldhunter