"...So we’re also doing significantly more work around derisking projects prior to sanction here in terms of the level of engineering that we’ll be undertaking, for example, which will give us greater certainty as to capital spend schedule and execution pathways. And we believe that the low capital, relatively low capital intensity of these greenfield projects will offer very good returns to our shareholders."
Bingo. This reads like a script to our saga at SC. And to a lesser extent, at GC, which admittedly already has a partner in Newmont. The optimized and reduced CAPEX, construction timeline, etc. have all been done way more than usual...and we have all taken this as Teck jamming us to see if we would capitulate. And this has got to be true to a certain extent. But Teck is also doing this as described above, to increase the certainty Elmer has relayed to us. We haven't capitulated because EE continues to foot the bill. I'm guessing the recent PP also demonstrates to Teck that we will continue as we have so keep optimizing and reducing uncertainties, CUU isn't going anywhere. The SC optimizations no doubt help the Galore bottom line, which is probably waiting on them to be completed to incorporate into its own "half" of a joint GC-SC PFS. Newmont probably has given orders to Teck that if it optimizes to a certain target then they will buy into SC and CUU gets taken out on their dime. To Teck is doubly motivated potentially to find all the efficiencies and if it takes longer, so be it. They might just get CUU out of the way for FREE.
JMHO
K
