For me, it still comes down to discounted Net Present Value (NPV), when trying to evaluate. In other words, what are the actual profits going to be, before and after tax, and after considering capex and opex. High metal grades and high tonnage are great, but the cash in hand once the concentrate leaves the port is the ultimate determiner of the worth of the deposit.

I think we may get some extra for the extra lands (like the 30% more in Paramount Elmer thinks is there) ... but I find this really hard to put a number on, as I just don't know how Teck's geo's will evaluate this. If Elmer is out to lunch (highly doubtful!!) it will become apparent, and if Teck's geo's are too cheap with their recommendation for the extra lands/extra in Paramount, I think we'll go shopping this to the majors.

What I do like is the higher tonnes per day (TPD) processing that is being envisioned. More cash flow from metals sales in the early years, will provide a quick payback, earlier profits and greatly affect the "discounted" portion of NPV in a good way. I also agree with Elmer's bullishness on long term metal prices. We may be at a low here in the cycle ... I like that we're pretty steady actually. If copper trends back up over $4 for a bit, and the other metals rise, we'll get more I think (e.g. let's say we sell all the BC lands in late November/December ... could happen, which I guess puts me in the "see the BFS camp" :-) ).

Ernesto mentioned after the AGM that a buyout now and a buyout in December could be quite different based on global factors (e.g. metal prices). He also confirmed that he is very "optimistic" for Copper Fox (I asked him twice to be sure!), so it was less concern I think he expressed, than the reality that global factors do affect our play. If copper gets back to $2, you know things have gotten very ugly globally. I don't see it however. Even with a bit more of a global slowdown, copper production needs to increase ... the world grows, and I agree with Elmer's words that people aren't going to want less of a standard of living (not anytime soon).

Pre-feasibility NPV: Old numbers before tax were $4.79B @5% discount, and $2.76B at 8% (maybe more realistic). My pessimistic base case for all the lands is 25% of either of these NPV numbers (assuming a 75% Teck back-in), plus a chunk for Teck's 4x expenditures ($320M if we're at $80M in expenditure) and a bit more for the extra lands (wildcard for me - $100M's or +$1B??).

Prepare for the worst, and expect the best, and be pleasantly surprised I figure. That's why I really want to see the BFS and the new numbers, to learn something and get a better idea of where this is going to go. Elmer did mention 200k TPD at the PDAC to me in January as a possibility, so really just wanting to see do they go 180k, 200k, more? This will greatly affect the economics. CUM for example, does 35k TPD and produces about a million dollars of concentrate a day at our current prices. We have more/better metals so lots of variables here.

If we see the BFS, which I think/hope we will, I doubt it will be long before Teck elects - no reason to wait. Agreed that they must be crunching numbers already. And, if the BFS is going to be released within the timeframe, it is largely done right now I believe. 4-5 weeks of tinkering/refining on a doc this size is nothing, so in my mind, it is already done and just putting on the touches for the final draft.

Counting down with the clock ...

GLTA