Noront Resources

I have a couple of thoughts running around my brain right now. If I concentrate on the events that just transpired over the past couple of months, I come to a very nasty conclusion. If I stop, give my head a good shake (getting all the cobwebs out, or at least some of them) and look beyond this play and try to remember what Wes Hansen has been talking about all along, it gives me another completely different scenario. OK, so, why did we just go out and make a bunch of Freewest shareholders a tidy little 3 - 4 bagger, and it just doesn't seem like our BOD cares much about our own interests, supposedly.....

Scenario 1: Our BOD and new President are arragant beyond measure and think that the world revolves around them and their Hedgie friends... thus thinking, and probably still thinking that they will get the required shares tendered by 11:59 tonight.....

I know that there really ARE people out there that are this arragant and totally misguidedly STUPID, as I have had the unfortunate pleasure to work for several of them..... Somehow, Wes does NOT strike me as this kind of a person, from what I have seen in his appearances on TV and listening to him at the AGM and Q & A times... Confident, YES, but Arragant... My take on him is Confident, NOT Arragant. I may be proven wrong, but let's just say I am leaning towards confident right now.

Scenario 2: This proposed takeover of Freewest was staged for several reasons that I am not privy to at this time and unknown to most shareholders who just happen to be called "retail". Staged, you say. Now what in the world could POSSIBLY come out of a bidding war with cliffs and having Freewest sold off to them?

I N F R A S T R U C T U R E

Hmmmm. Cliffs has just committed themselves to spending $250ish million dollars to buy Freewest. Is this to sit on it and just make sure that no-one else will mine this???

Well, maybe if you were ALREADY mining chromite, you may consider leaving it in the ground, but not if it is the only chromite body in North America to date worth mining, no way, no how. This will be mined, mark my words (my opinion, of course).

So, what was just accomplished here? Did we lose bitterly? Did we have our proverbial arses handed to us on a platter? Are we DONE here???

OK, who remembers what Wes has stated all along? Wes has stated that he intends to take Noront to the next level, the PRODUCTION level. Is this just a game??? Maybe, maybe not. What I do know is that if Wes is getting all his ducks lined up to do what he has read in the news release of July 4th, 2008, this move may just be Brilliant after all. If Wes is planning on mining this Eagles Nest, he can do so VERY cheaply, without a ton of dilution, and now extra cheaply if cliffs is going to be involved in getting the infrastructure going... Find the news release on July 4th, 2008 and you will get it in a BIG hurry. This was the feasibility study done by Mr. Nemis on how he was planning to get this area up and running. It started like this...

"The realization of very high Ni grades (6.5% to 7.0%) in the massive sulphide zone allows Noront to consider the possibility of first shipping unprocessed ore to a southern based concentrator/smelter complex. The construction of an on site concentrator for the disseminated mineralization would be accomplished out of operating cash flow under this scenario. This concept would be considered in an early preliminary economic assessment with minimal capital costs and an early production date, subject to all necessary consents, approvals, permits and land use requirements. While Noront would need to complete a feasibility study, prior to undertaking this direct shipping approach, management of Noront anticipates there would likely be potentially minimal impact to the environment and the mine development would provide road access to several local native communities currently with air access only. " --- taken right out of that news release...

Now, what do you think it would cost to get a couple of trucks (semi, that is) worth of explosives trucked up to the Ring of Fire on our all weather road that is running right beside the rail line that is being built, pay for the permits to start taking the massive sulfides out of the ground, move that HUGE 7 meters of overburden out of the way at hole 5 (this may take 2 rounds of blasting, you know), hire some big equipment to load trucks and some trucks to run this massive sulfides from Eagle 1 A directly from the ground to the smelter in Thunder Bay or Timmins or where ever that darn thing is??? What do you think??? A couple of hundred million shares, like cliffs would have you believe??? Think again. There is 233,000 tons of Massive sulfide at approx. 6% nickel along with all the rest of the goodies in there that was valued at over $1000/ton when nickel was at $12/lb. and platinum valued at $1250/ounce... Where do YOU think platinum will be in 3ish years, because you really don't need a lot more time than this to get permits in place to "start" blasting that little hole in the ground that will generate approximately $233 million to help fund the rest of the mining that Noront plans to do up there...

Are you getting the picture yet??? This is really a NO Brainer if it is handled properly and we go it alone. Cliffs can do their thing with the chromite, and we really don't need to mine the chromite until we get done with the Eagles nest, which should probably take about 7 - 10 years to mine it out and get our 7 - 15 billion dollars of ore out of the ground... and when we are done and IF the price of nickel goes up sometime between then and now, we have 100 meter plus intercepts of .5% nickel at AT12, never mind the massive sulfides that they are currently looking for. .5% nickel IS economically viable when Nickel is over $12/pound IF infrastructure is in place. Noront just made this AT12 area have value...

Dumb, or Brilliant???

Enough for now. It will take time to see where the chips fall. I am still invested in Noront, and I don't plan on going anywhere for a while. I may sell a couple of thousand shares for Christmas or something silly like that, but I am staying to see where this goes. It's all there, set up for Wes, and this may have been the kick start we all needed to get cliffs MOVING with the infrastructure that WILL make us rich, if we end up mining this ourselves... That's my thinking right now. NO WAY are our new people at Noront that ARRAGANT, at least that is what I am hoping and praying for. I must go, it's time to take my girl to volleyball practice. Have a great weekend, all.

God Bless all Noront and Freewest shareholders.

Herb :-}