Teck could be a target so they are fattening up. They want an iron company and more copper reserves. They want a fair bit more debt so they won't look attractive.

Teck doesn't have enough money or credit to buy a huge iron producer nor should they while iron is still up there and still take us out and fully develope the district. They know iron will weaken over the next few years before it resumes its run. The time gap is 1 year too long. But, they have made what I consider to be many blunders over the last decade.

Our district really needs 15 billion to take out everyone and build it up. This takes copper, gold and silver people. Royal and Xtrata aready have stakes in the area and in us. It looks to me like there is sufficient cooperation to pull this off. I am looking at the players to see who has iron that could trade it for copper interests. Tech has too many good projects. They could sell one in Chile or elsewhere to get iron.

It's one thing to try buy us out and another to develop it. Let's say we go for 4 billion. By the time they see the first dollar of profit it will have cost 8 billion. We are trying to reduce the start up cost so the money can come to us. If they could get us for 4 bucks it would make a huge difference in the final costs here but still not enough to buy an iron mine. They will have to look at Eastern Canada and I think they are.

They could forgo Galore and not take out anyone around us but that would drive up the costs when it came time to consider it. Paget is going to come in around 1.5 to 2.5 billion in the next 4 years. (Their Rainbow deposit will contain about 14 million ounces of gold.) Romios might produce about 1 billion. Mess Creek is a wild card and may contain some serious value at depth. At worst, it's the entry point and connected to the claims Paget owns. We have not properly developed the root to our system because it is at depth and they won't get to it for a decade but we still have to charge for it. Add a billion plus.

As you can see, we have a super hot commodity so the company will part with it at a dear price. There may be a concession made to us in the form of a very fat spinco. Anything to get the final price down. But, no matter how I slice and dice this with the known information I can't see any way around the consortium approach. I expect this to be one of the most complicated deals ever struck and I'm 100% sure this has been in the works for over a year.