I thought I remembered offhand that the industrial-scale test would require a fairly large amount, something on the order of 100-1000 tonnes, or quite a few dump truck loads. Even if all the core samples from all companies who were hitting chromite could be combined, I doubt there would be enough volume to satisfy that requirement.

A road needs to go into the Ring. Once that road is there, even a winter road, they can get enough pieces of equipment in to pull out the required volume for a large-scale industrial/commercial test.

My guess is that KWG needs Noront to put the road in, and build the underground ramp to get down to a suitable deposit, before being able to access enough ore for a proper test.

The two companies need to be able to work together.