RE: Dreaming! Making a loop of the QNS&L and Cartier railways is a great idea.
Arcelor's apparent lack of desire to carry the ore of other companies is probably as strategic as it is anything else.
Maintaining privacy could give Arcelor a leg up in negotiations surrounding development of other deposits in the area at a future date.
Cliffs owns Lamalee and Peppler now though and it could be many many years anyway before they even think about developmet of these deposits.
What's the infrastructure situation at Port Cartier? Can that port handle increased iron ore shipments now or will it take much invesment to do so?
I guess the extra 50 million tonne ore handling facilities to be built at Sept Iles with help from the Feds will relieve a lot of the port access issues there. So some moves are being made to improve things.
If there is virtue in what New Millennium says about pipeline being a lot cheaper on an operational basis though, then there will always be an arguement in favour of pipe over rail - even if there is ample rail capacity.