Thanks for the link to the article TM. Here's the gist of the rest of it:

-what that bid tells us about BHP’s future strategy: BHP is now scouring the world looking for small enterprises that have major deposits.

-the minerals industry may increasingly split between exploration and early development of big mines for small companies and later development to the majors

-BHP’s bid of below $A400million is petty cash. The Andrew Forrest bid was dangerously low and it gave BHP an opening albeit BHP was very late. 

-BHP needs to try and keep the Noront exploration team but BHP’s future developments are far more likely to come out of small exploration companies like Noront.

-It is almost inevitable that BHP will go ahead with the Canadian potash development. 

-If BHP buys Noront and develops Potash, Canada is going to be increasingly important for the group.