What makes this stand out for me is that prior presentations really didn't cover such topics that could be reflected back to Schaft very well at all. That makes these small mentions a bit more significant to me.

Thanks Chappy for that well thought out message. It does seem that Teck is somehow preparing the market for a major copper acquisition.

I noticed they announced their intended capex for 2013: Teck's total capex budget for 2013 is roughly $2.3 billion, the company said in its 2013 guidance, but officials said during the call that the only budget committed for 2013 to date is the portion covering projects already in progress, including QB Phase II and the Quintette coal mine.
The company said it would spend $450 million of its roughly $1 billion new-mine development budget for 2013 on the next phase of that project, QB Phase II.

If they bought us out quickly, would drilling this season fall under capex in terms of their budget? I guess what I'm wondering is if part of that large projected capex figure might be intended for our project, or at least part of that $1billion new-mine development budget.

There is this less cheery comment though, and we've heard about these sorts of discussions ourselves: A Teck official said the company is currently in discussions with its two QB development partners on whether the partners will continue into QB Phase II or sell off their respective interests.