One agreement demanded more committment and the retaining of ownership of the property if Teck didnt back in - the other allows shelving to happen.
I don't think this is strictly true. The Salazar Agreement did not demand more committment, just the illusion of committment. They could have chosen to work towards the 75% ownership, but given up at any time they lost interest in the project. They could have spent the $2.5M and decided they were not interested in the project any more.
They could have taken 10 years to fiddle about and then dropped the project. There was no timeline. In the meantime we wouldn't have had any money and we wouldn't have had any other projects to occupy us.
If we held the Liard shares under the Salazar Agreement, we couldn't sell them. What is the value of holding the Liard shares instead of Teck holding them?