"Yes I can think of one scenario. Don Lindsay says to Elmer; "Teck will give you your full asking price ... so long as you drag this out until 'xxx, xxxx' and keep secret the BFS results and Mira report".

Perhaps a reason for this would be Teck's desire to resolve NovaGolds decision to get out of Galore first. If Teck (and a partner?) wants to pickup NovaGolds 50% cheap and own the whole district, I doubt they want to show their hand with Schaft Creek just yet. I believe NovaGold wanted to have their 50% of Galore sold by the by the end of the year.