I was travelling yesterday and had a lot of time to think here are some thoughts I was going over in regards to our investment - please correct any thing that isn't accurate ...these are just thoughts

From Teck's perspective:

• fort hills coming online, have talked about clearing debt...do they jump back into producing a new mine.  I say yes, but with Fording they have learned they can't go too deep in debt.  What kind of mine? Gotta be copper with their bullish outlook and reducing production at HV
• So if Copper, where?  QBII has been in queue for a while so it would seem that is where.  If they do that, then I don't see them spending more to develop us anytime soon.  However, why has QB taken so long to get the go ahead...permitting? Geopolitical issues, environmental issues? 

Teck said they were meeting mid November and would be discussing plans for QBII...same time they are meeting with Elmer...

So does this sound like it could be...but if it's not, where does that leave us?  And if they go ahead with us, we are not in permitting stage so does that mean choosing us is less likely?

• San Nicolas?  Small mine, affordable but not a massive output like QB or Shaft

So limited money....

Teck knows we would like teck shares, so what if instead of cash they do offer us shares...no one likes dilution but they are in the process of doing a buy back 20 mil shares (about $550 million...which if it was then diluted to us would be about $1.25/share) - I'd take that on teck shares!

But then they need to fund the mine - again QB or us? This is what I keep coming back to and it makes me nervous.

So teck a) buys us out and makes a mine, b) decides to sell us, c) sits on us and tinkers around like the last 4 years

If teck goes ahead with QBII then we get option b or c

Really interested in what comes of the optimization studies. And hope that we get option a or b.  I do not want c!!!!

Last thoughts and Time for some optimism:

But what if they partnered on either mine, so that cost was negligible.  Take shaft for example, they buy us out with shares, then sell 49% to company A for ? Say 2.5 billion (please offer accurate numbers)....then they use the cash to build their portion of the mine for their 51%.  Basically this scenario gets them 51% of a producing shaft creek for 20 mill to back in and 20 million shares....seems like a no brainer.  And I'm thinking my numbers are off on sale of 49% and cost to build so perhaps the numbers are better for them?  Maybe they further sell gold, silver, moly streams from shaft....

This option, building both, would really make teck a huge copper player in the markets eyes and more equally diversify them.  Developing San Nicolas would add both copper and zinc.

That's it for me,

spitfire