Glorieux:

RN: " He stated that we had enough PGE's to generate a mine just for this."

I mentioned this back in November last year and will do it again:

in my opinion we have a very, very high potential of a PGE mine after the latest essays !

Because apart from unprecedented nickle grades plus additional copper and now the whole 8 elements of the precious metal group with gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, osmium and iridium with excellent grades, there can be no doubt that with this tonnage already (plus open pit) there should be an economic mine at Double Eagle.

Why is that ?

After a lot of DD I come to the following conclusion:

PGE-analysis for Noront´s Double Eagle find:


The "Big Players" in the PGE business are Anglo American Platinum, Impala Platinum (Implats), Lonmin PLC (Lonplats), Norilsk Nickel and Stillwater Mining Company (just to name the most important ones).

The Bushveld Igneous Complex (BIC) in SA is the area with the most PGE production worldwide followed by Norilsk Nickel´s Polar Division top mines (Oktyabrsky und Talnakh).
In North America it is Stillwater (Stillwater Mining), in Canada Lac des Iles (North American Palladium), Raglan (Falconbridge) and several mines in Sudbury Basin (Inco, Falconbridge).

Worldwide ranking of production of PGE is as follows:  

South Africa (59%), Russia (28%), Canada (5%) and USA (4%).

For comparison I mention the metal (head) grades of the top mines / areas in the PGE business (in g/t for 3E-PGE, meaning combination of platinum, palladium and gold (note: the "iums" are not accounted for but become more and more important with rising spot prices):


1. Bushveld (BIC)

The top mines extract  3-6 g/t  PGE


2. Norilsk

Talnakh : around 10-11 g/t PGE
Oktyabrsky: around 13-14 g/t PGE


3. Canada

Sudbury:

Copper Cliff North: around 16 g/t PGE (but 300.000 tonnes only)
Totten: 4,8 g/t PGE
Kelly Lake: 3,6 g/t PGE


Lac des Iles: 2 g/t PGE (but huge tonnage and open-pit)


4. USA

Stillwater:

the Johns-Manville Reef is probably the highest grade PGE mine in the world: 22-24 g/t PGE

but: it is in great depth and no continuous mineralization (meaning high costs)

Now to Double Eagle figures (again in g/t  JUST for 3E-PGE):

#01:   2,9 g/t
#02:   4,3 g/t
#05:   9,6 g/t
#07: 10,6 g/t
#08:   1,1 g/t
#09:   8,0 g/t                                                                             #11:   4,5 g/t                                                                                     

#12:   3,4 g/t

#14:   3,9 g/t

#16:   3,7 g/t

#17:   4,0 g/t

#18:   5,3 g/t

#19:
(These are the average grades per hole, some of them with very good lenghts).

If we look at the most prominent intervalls, you have to come to the conclusion that if we get the tonnage and similar grades, DE ranks very highly in the PGE list of worldclass deposits and therefore will be interesting for the "Big Players" in this business, too:

NOT-07-05:

6 4 , 7 5  g/t  over 3,00 m

and

1 3 , 2 6  g/t  over  6 8 , 2 0 m (!)


NOT 07-07:

4 4 , 7 4  g/t  over 2,80 m

and 

2 2 , 3 7  g/t  over 14,30 m

and

1 1 , 7 4  g/t  over 14,30 m

Just do the comparison and some futher DD:

http://www.infomine.com/commodities/palladium.asp

http://www.infomine.com/commodities/platinum.asp

http://www.mbendi.co.za/indy/ming/plat/af/sa/p0005.htm

http://www.platinum.matthey.com/uploaded_files/Pt2004/PGM%20Mining%20Russia.pdf

http://www.platinum.matthey.com/production/production.html

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/platinum/550398.pdf

http://www.platinum.matthey.com/production/1048863442.html

http://www.mininglife.com/commodities/Palladium.asp

http://www.mininglife.com/commodities/Platinum.asp

http://www.kitco.com/charts/livepalladium.html

http://www.kitco.com/charts/liveplatinum.html

Best Regards,

FANTOMAS