This is my take on the "everything is on time" from last year. When talking with TT, TT probably did tell Elmer they were on time. "Yup, we've finished 22/26 sections" but upon the review at that time - because TT was understaffed, but MORE IMPORTANTLY undertalented (i.e. their good talent and senior engineers were HIRED AWAY by other people) meant that the BFS was probably flawed. This explains why we hire internal oversight (Jim Gray). They need someone qualified and experienced to oversee the project because when it was done the first time...it wasn't up to snuff. This explains why management could tell us everything was on time, and upon them reviewing it finding out it wasn't. The story works well with what we know from management and from TT NR's.

Another company may have just released it and said they were going to have an updated BFS at some point - but we can't just release stuff nilly willy on account of our contract with Teck. We needed to get it done right, which is why Elmer keeps saying "We need to get this done right the first time". It, in my mind, wasn't done right last year. They see it as an opportunity and use the new RE as an excuse to delay it further. At the end of the day, even if we released it back then Teck may have said this isn't a proper BFS and we might have dropped further (see Baja) and we'd be "back to the drawing board" and still be here in this timeframe, or even later.

Again - that can explain the year gap - but the 2 months (late summer), even with reviews deadline is a little difficult to explain or come up with a story with any evidence. I think we're in negotiations and will see an offer in tandum with the BFS from Teck. Legal counsel has told Elmer to not talk about the BFS. Even if we're not in negotiations, we're done it, and a final draft at this point. Teck may just be reviewing it even if no offer has officially been made yet

JMHO