I have been doing a lot of Googling and reading and Googling (vicious circle let me tell ya) and it is very clear to me that when you look at the world metal deposits out there the grades are declining and new deposits are harder to find. Furthermore, it seems to me that many of the big boys out there are really having hard time to replace their ever depleting mines, not to mention trying to keep up with growing demand. Lets be realistic here, China – even with 7% GDP growth – will still be needing more metals like copper to keep the 7% growth going. I have also not given up on the US economy and they will eventually recover, as will Europe. Also, lets also not forget that all them really good resources (i.e., high grades) that were discovered between the 50s and 80s are now mostly mined out; at least that's what I see.

Based on what I am reading it seems that there is a good consensus among the mining analysts that most of the blue chip producing miners are well financed right now (including TECK), so they will be able to buy new acquisitions at any time. The mining industry has been extremely profitable over the past few years, hording an enormous amount of cash even though that is not reflected in their SPs. According to some, the top miners (30-40) may have together more than $100 billion in their war chests; that’s a lot of play $$$$.