What now?

My assumptions: Teck won't be committing to new big expenditures until Fort Hills starts producing in 2017 and there is a lot of work to do before a new EA is submitted.

Given the sustained downturn in the economy, we have to think that Elmer is considering dilution. This might lead to a share roll-back. I think the AGM is in late May so we might hear something about this in late April?

If our stock price remains this low, if he can't sell VD or arrange a JV, if Teck won't move forward until the end of 2017 at the earliest, if the price of copper doesn't improve—what choice is there? It looks like dilution and it just makes sense to also do a share roll-back at that time.

I know they've always said they wouldn't but nobody could have predicted how long this bear market has lasted, or how long it would take Teck to work on SC.

In the meantime, they will re-visit the RE, whether published in a 43-101 compliant report or not.

(The optimization studies, btw, look to be completed but Elmer always said that he didn't know if Teck was going to publish the results and we can't do it on our own without a QP. It looks like they were completed without fanfare.)

In order to do the AIR they have to produce a new tailings report. There were these lines that I found interesting in Elmer's NR: The surficial geological mapping of the proposed tailings impoundment area in the Skeeter Lake Valley has identified various surficial materials that could impact the infrastructure design. The 2015 mapping did not find any evidence to support the existence of a large slope sagging feature east of Skeeter Lake, previously reported in 2011.

This information sounds good, no sagging feature, but maybe that is needed to contain the tailings in the lake on the east side? Whatever, it means that things are not as certain as they once were and the tailings are already an area of concern for all proposed mines so I think we have to be on alert. To me, it is a problem that has been identified in a significant area and should set off some alarm bells.

I would assume this gives time for the new government to set up obstacles to permitting as well. I was reading the other day that the FN want to do the EA's for all new projects and that means handing over a huge amount of money and waiting a lot of time—again, new govenrment is most FN friendly so they might agree to some form of shared review process. It has to make Canada less attractive for mining.

Sorry, all, I would try to be more upbeat but we can't just ignore the warning signs.