CLEVELAND is VERY Happy about the FREEWEST DEAL - > see ? ?

Cliffs Natural Resources expects big return from chrome deal in Canada

By Robert Schoenberger, The Plain Dealer

November 23, 2009, 3:03PM

OTHER MEDIA REPORTS

 CNN Money: Freewest Announces $0.70 Per Share Acquisition by Cliffs Natural Resources Inc.

Reuters: Miner Cliffs Natural to acquire Freewest

Canadian Press: Cliffs Natural Resources to takeover Freewest Resources Canada

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- In a move that could raise company revenues by as much as 42 percent by 2015, Cliffs Natural Resources has agreed to buy a Canadian minerals exploration company, giving it access to what it hopes are huge deposits of chrome in Ontario.

"It's a very big project that we've embarked on," Joseph Carrabba, chairman, president and chief executive of the Cleveland mining company, said today during a conference call with stock analysts.
Freewest Resources Canada is an exploration company that has discovered large deposits of chromite in Ontario, north of Thunder Bay. Cliffs plans to buy Freewest for $118 million. It will take the company's chromite holdings and spin off the rest of the company.
Carrabba said taking over Freewest's mineral rights will kick off a five-year process that he expects to cost as much as $800 million. Cliffs plans to build several chromite mines in Canada and several smelting facilities along the northern shore of Lake Superior to process the ore into ferrochromium -- a key ingredient in stainless steel.
Cliffs plans to mine 1 million to 2 million tons of chromite per year and use that to produce 400,000 to 800,000 tons of ferrochromium.
Cliffs executives said the project could bring in $1 billion to $1.5 billion per year by the time the mines and processing centers have been completed.
In 2008, Cliffs' total sales were $3.6 billion, so a $1.5 billion increase would represent nearly a 42 percent jump.
Carrabba said the project was exciting for Cliffs for several reasons. While it already sells iron ore to several steel producers, getting into chromium would give Cliffs access to stainless steel producers, a new market.
Also, most of the world's chromium comes from South Africa and Turkey. Having a huge supply in eastern Canada would be attractive both to North American stainless steel producers and to companies in western Europe that are looking for more politically stable supplies of commodities, Carrabba said.
With the purchase agreement in place, he said, it should take Cliffs about three years to finish environmental permitting and project planning in Canada. Construction should begin in 2013 or 2014 and mineral volumes would start shipping in 2015.
Most of the $800 million that Cliffs expects to spend would come in 2013 and 2014, he said. He added that Cliffs may have to raise cash or take on partners in a few years to pay for the project