I agree with you that this why the CN is maintaining a presence after all the estimated value of Eagle is 3-5 billion dollars. The next two projects two watch are the New White Pine and the Back Forty project (the next mine likely to enter the permitting process).
I think a number of companies were watching to see if Eagle actually got to production. The three obstacles to development are cost of developing a property, regulatory issues and court challenges., The easiest to overcome is the regulatory obstacle (if the political climate remains the same), the bigger challenges are the cost to development ( Eagle cost 500 million) and surviving the court challenges.
There are also lots of exploratory drilling going on and additional developmental rumors – I think you can get Lundin staff to admit the rehabbing of the Humboldt was not just for Eagle.
Also don’t forget what is going on with the Wisconsin side of the Gogebic Range –to me from an economic perspective and rail development perspective this is the most exciting due to the expected duration of the project (20-30 years as opposed to mines like Eagle or Copperwood which are more in the range of seven years (think of the Flambeau mine at Ladysmith).
Another exciting development is the reprocessing of historic properties such as using the Gay stamp sands for roofing graduals (one of the reasons why Senate Bill 872 was being so heavily pursued), the mining sand at the Groveland for fracking purposes and the reprocessing of the tailings at Groveland.
Cheers,
Mark
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