Peter Marshall and Been There

PM's post says: "BT, I agree with your assessment summary of the situation. and hence I feel that PRB should consider stopping negotiations; cease any drilling which potentially adds any value to the wedge/timberlands; Concentrate on PRB land only RE enhancement drilling; announce a PEA plan structure which excludes the wedgelands indefinitely.Hence Isolate them indefinitely.

PRB can mine without the wedge. The timber owners are, and are getting quite old and want their money now. Pigs and greed always lose."

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I have been staring at the drill maps and the cross section at both ends during the weekend, the one near the wedge and the other end at 2000mSE. There are quite a few things to learn from this exercise.

1. The wedge end: The shoreline is a bit complicated. I tried to compare Google Earth picture with the drill map, but the accuracy is not that great, especially the drill map. If PRB gave out the lat and long of some reference holes, then the job would be easier.However, given the info available, I could only make a guess. One of the guesses: Presumably, Dave knows the lands well, hence he would know when not to punch over to the "wedge" side, hence all results for the holes near the wedge would stop in the water of that little cove (i.e. 100% PRB).

2. The far end, 2000SE: This gets more and more interesting. It looks like the grades continue to be high, even getting higher at some sections, i.e. good news for the extension toward the other side of the lake, for another 1000m.

3. Hole #256: Does anyone know the exact location of this hole? (lat and long woul be perfect, since I could lay it on the GE image. Interesting observation/guess is that the sweet spot for this hole shifts about 150m to the SW. Note the sweet spot spine, the line going through the middle of the HGZ (in red) on Slide 8 of the Corp Presentation. This means that the sweet spot/spine for the HGZ would most likely stay outside the 50% JV.

One big picture: PRB does not have to dig for any deposit under the 50% JV (is this legitimate, and could this be considered as a bargain chip for PRB?)

4. Another big picture: Just ignore all the details about the drill results near the wedge, especially the portion on the water side. Regardless of the results, Dave already gave the world some hint about the HGZ going through the wedge (slide 8 again). Perhaps, this is (presumably) why the forestry companies are playing hard to get since they appear confident that they have some goods under their wedge (a pure guess).

5. Potential course of action: The best course for playing this chess game is to IGNORE the potential deposit under the wedge (as discussed in previous posts) and advertise to the world that we are moving away from it (we have another 1000km to the other side of the lake, compared to something like 200m under the wedge, plus the fact that they are restricted by a buffer zone of 60+60m, hence the effective deposit area would be 200 - 120 = 80m (not much of a deposit to developed economically), while we can afford to ignore 120m on our side (a bargaining chip during negotiation?).

6. PEA based on underground operation: Terminate the negotiation with the forestry companies, and serve notice of an easement application for a tunnel underneath the wedge (some condemnation drilling may be required). The PEA should be based on extraction of the HGZ deposit via a tunnel from the SW side of the LGZ (the yellow area in slide 8) with a "new" open pit-constrained option in the future (can PRB get around the 50%JV area all together, as a bargaining chip?)

7. A back of an envelope calculation (very rough estimate) indicates that the current HGZ, excluding the wedge, could contain something like 3 M oz Au. If the HGZ continues across the lake then 6M oz would not seem unlikely. To be conservative let's take 5M oz (underground) + 3M (to be conservative for the "new" open pit-constrained, instead of 4.3Moz).

Let the games begin and see who would blink first.

Perhaps, some well-seasoned posters (Peter?) who have a good rapport with Dave should have a good tete-a-tete (phone = next best thing) and sound out the "get tough" strategy with him to get some reaction?

Another question to pose: Some high grade intersections from 2000 SE are pretty near the "Big Island" (approx 100m x 100m, and East of the Narrows) that seems to be covered by PRB 100% claims. So why not use this as a firm footing for the 4th drill rig (instead of drilling from ice). Anyone?

goldhunter