What makes you so sure that they are technically competent?

This isn't directed at Met....

The new mine plan is effectively identical to the 2008 plan just a bit bigger. That tells me that they should have had a VERY good idea that the 171M tonnes of waste would be inside the pit AND that it would have been a dead weight on the economics. The 'waste' is mostly in the Liard zone per Elmer's email to myself.

How did this 'waste' escape 2 new RE models plus Mira and the general concept of where the pit would be? They claim it was because they only recieved the 'new' mine plan in Q4 2012. Did they not get a mine plan in Q4 2011 when we were expecting the promised BFS to be completed in Dec 2011? did it not contain much of the same pit as in 2008? We don't know because the whole 2011 BFS was scrapped in spring 2012 and blamed on TT. Meanwhile our new Dec 2012 BFS contains all of the metallurgy, drilling and other related work from 2010-11.

Please dont' tell me about Teck's grand master plan with the 171M tonnes. If Teck wanted a dumbed-down bfs then why didn't we give them the POS from spring 2012? Same amount of waste, lower backin expenditures etc. With the 171M t as a credit vrs a dead weight, we might have made the 12% NPV test of the Agreement. Now it looks like Teck can sniff at our +FS for 30 days till they decide whether to accept it. That may be what ES is negotiating on.

As folks might see, I'm getting a bit pissed - mostly for not seeing my own observations and hoping that I'm wrong.

JMHO

Old vrs new:

Old, 2008 Mine rim outlined in brown on this image of the Dec 2012 Mine Plan shown at 21 years (Fig 15.6 Ultimate Pit Design)

Larger: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60356448@N04/8448364446/in/photostream/lightbox/