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Mackenzie Watson, President and CEO of Freewest Resources (FWR, TSX-V), may not be correct in his view that Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (CLF, NYSE) is a better choice than Noront Resources (NOT, TSX-V) to take over Freewest and its valuable chromite deposit in the James Bay Lowlands of northern Ontario, but one thing’s for certain: This mining veteran has drawn a major mining company into a battle over resources in the prolific Ring of Fire, and that’s good news for all investors.

Cliffs‘ revised offer today of 90 cents a share in Cliffs stock for Freewest, a slight premium to Noront’s latest “final” offer, by no means settles this battle. In fact, the real battle could just be getting underway. Clearly, Cliffs is the big guy with deep pockets who wants to get his hands on all the chromite Freewest is sitting on (a North American supply doesn’t currently exist). Noront is the “little guy”, described rather rudely as a “pipsqueak” in a recent article, with a lot less money but an incredibly valuable resource – not to mention blue sky potential – in the Ring of Fire that includes a substantial high-grade nickel-copper and PGM deposit, the Blackbird 1 and Blackbird 2 chromite deposits, and even some gold and other metal discoveries.

Where things go from here is anyone’s guess as this is a very fluid and unpredictable situation, occurring at a time when the Venture Exchange is in a new bull market which adds further fuel to the fire. Noront is hitting hard and has been coming out with a flurry of news releases including one this morning that clearly shows they have a firm grasp on all the development issues regarding the Ring of Fire. How Cliffs would fare in terms of dealing with the First Nations is something Freewest shareholders should be giving more consideration to.

So here are our thoughts on how this may all unfold in the coming days and weeks, and we encourage readers to offer their insights as well:

1. The $200+ million offer currently on the table for Freewest by Cliffs unquestionably puts a floor on the Noront stock price and a much greater overall valuation on its Ring of Fire properties. If the takeover price on Freewest is $211 million, what would a potential takeover price on Noront be? One billion? Two billion? Three billion? Currently, Noront’s market capitalization stands at only $400 million. Noront’s market cap is virtually guaranteed to go much higher.

2. Noront is not playing a game here. They are dead serious about taking over Freewest. A very strong argument in favor of Freewest shareholders accepting a takeover offer from Noront is Noront’s blue sky potential, the very real possibility that its share price could go through the roof for any number of reasons – a surge in nickel prices, new discoveries, takeover attempts, etc. The value of Noront’s stock is its ace in the hole, we believe, in its attempt to acquire Freewest. Whatever Noront can do in the coming days and the next few weeks to get its share price more in line with the real value of its Ring of Fire assets, the greater chance it has of capturing Freewest. If Noront is successful in getting investors on its side, look out Cliffs.

3. Another major may enter the picture. Now that there’s one, the odds of someone else stepping up to the plate have increased substantially. Even one to help Noront?

Bottom line: We expect Noront and Freewest to both go higher, not to mention Probe Mines (PRB, TSX-V) and MacDonald Mines (BMK, TSX-V).

Noront’s chart, by the way, looks incredibly explosive. And a picture tells a thousand words. There are times when you just know and can feel that a stock is about to go crazy. That’s what it seems like right now with Noront.

With a major now in the picture, everything has changed with the Ring of Fire. The next week is going to be incredibly interesting. No matter what, though, Noront is definitely a winner through this process, and its share price will reflect that.

Two things are holding down Seafield Resources (SFF, TSX-V) and keeping it in a very tight range at the moment: 1) Completion of the private placement announced October 23; and 2) a definitive agreement with Caribbean Copper and Gold Corporation (CCGC) on the acquisition of properties of very substantial merit in the Quinchia district of Colombia. We believe Seafield is very close – within two weeks or less – of finalizing its private placement and the all-important deal with CCGC that ultimately will power this stock to much higher levels.

We are continuing to work on a major special report regarding Seafield and it is our intention now to post that report soon after all the details are released on its agreement with CCGC. The deal with CCGC is going to be a company-changer for Seafield, and all the accumulation and positioning we’ve witnessed over the past couple of months is proof of that in our opinion.

We suspect the delay in the completion of the private placement is actually another clue that something very big is in the works. On Wednesday morning, November 17, following an important Seafield news release, M Partners entered the Seafield market for the very first time and picked up nearly 500,000 shares (read our post about M Partners Nov. 19). We believe they contacted Seafield President and CEO Tony Roodenburg that day to let them know of their desire to acquire some shares in the open market and perhaps also through a private placement. We say that because in a single trade that morning, M Partners picked up 250,000 shares at 15 cents. Insider trading reports reveal that an unnamed Seafield insider sold 250,000 shares that very same day at the same price. Strange coincidence, or positioning? Speculation on our part, but it seems that M Partners was fed some stock at 15 cents and this only could have happened, we believe, from a conversation between them and Roodenburg. It’s hard to imagine M Partners would stop at a paltry 500,000 shares in the open market. They probably also wanted in on some private placement stock, so we expect Seafield to soon announce the closing of a new private placement or the third and final tranche of what was proposed October 23.

We could be right or wrong but that’s how we read it. M Partners is big on Colombia and they were also the lead agent in Galway Resources‘ (GWY, TSX-V) recent major financing.

The Seafield story has indeed had some interesting twists and turns the past couple of months, but those investors who have shown patience will be rewarded tremendously soon enough. Once the financing is completed and the Colombian news is announced, the lid is effectively off this stock.

Gold has recovered from some profit taking this morning and as of 10:30 a.m. Pacific time has turned slightly positive on the day…mining major Cliff’s Natural Resources has increased its friendly all-stock takeover offer for Freewest Resources (FWR, TSX-V) to 90 cents per share…Probe Mines (PRB, TSX-V), which we have been mentioning here, is up nicely this morning as the Freewest offer makes its chromite discovery more appealing to investors…has Noront Resources (NOT, TSX-V) lost the battle for Freewest?…not necessarily, as we believe Noront will be making a lot more noise in this battle and possibly with its share price…we view Noront as a strong buy as we have been stating here over the past week… bottom line, if Freewest is valued at over $200 million now, Noront is worth substantially more – much more – and the market is ultimately going to reflect that…we believe Freewest shareholders are better served joining with Noront as Noront offers a lot more blue-sky potential than Cliff’s…in any event, a major’s interest in the Ring of Fire can only be a huge positive for all the companies in that area, especially Noront…

Gold’s strength continues this morning with a push through $1,200 an ounce…clearly, despite its current overbought condition, a near vertical move by gold in the very near term cannot be ruled out, though we do believe it is still wise to take some profits off the table in certain gold stocks that are technically very overbought…one stock that isn’t is Colombian Mines Corporation (CMJ, TSX-V) which we suggest investors do some due diligence on as this appears to be a very appealing situation…with less than 20 million shares outstanding, a strong land position in Colombia (including the Yarumalito Property which CMJ will soon be drilling), and a solid management team with extensive experience in Colombia, this is certainly a very attractive play with considerable upside potential…we will be writing more on Colombian Mines this week…its range in the first two hours of trading this morning is .58-.64…

Gold may be in need of a rest, as we mentioned here yesterday, but it doesn’t seem to be too interested in taking one at the moment with this morning’s move to new record highs…the TSX Gold Index is closing in on its all-time high around 390 set in very early 2008…if gold should move convincingly past $1,200, then no doubt we’ll see the Gold Index break through some very important resistance…the action in the Venture Exchange, which has hit a new 52-week high today, suggests gold is going to continue to head higher as the Venture has been perhaps the best leading indicator of the gold and gold share market over the past couple of years…there’s no question, however, that gold is technically very overbought and so are many gold stocks, seniors and juniors…we still believe it’s wise to take some profits off the table in stocks that are particularly technically overbought…we were buyers of Noront Resources (NOT, TSX-V) again this morning…many investors, we believe, have failed to grasp the significance of what is developing right now with the competing takeover attempts of Freewest Resources (FWR, TSX-V) by Noront and mining major Cliff’s Natural Resources…we wouldn’t be surprised if another major grabs a percentage slice of Noront which would send Noront considerably higher…this is something that Noront may even be pursuing…much is at stake in the Ring of Fire at the moment and the coming weeks are going to be incredibly interesting…as the takeover price for Freewest increases, so does the underlying value of Noront…