Pash,

It was a bit puzzling, but here are my interpretations

1. PRB resource estimates: This would depend how/when you look at them.

In the early days (Micon Tech Rept May 2012), the resource was stated to be in the range 7Moz (60% indicated) of low grade Au of 0.71 gpt (igoring the Ag contribution) with cut-off grade 0.30. A pit-constrained estimate with cut-off grade of 0.6 gpt brought the resource estimate down to ~3.4Moz (80% indicated) @ 1.04 gpt.

Fast forward to Snowdon June 2014, new resource estimates taking into account the HGZ and a tighter pit-constrained shell, and we have 2.03 Moz high grade @ ~5gpt and 2.32 Moz @ 1.03 gpt (this was called low grade, but it would be less confusing to call this lower grade, for the reason explained below).

Since the pit shell is now tighter (smaller pit), quite a bit of low grade would be left out of the pit to be considered later when the POG is up in the range of 1300 to make extraction of the low grade economical. Based on the previous Micon results consideration for an additional low grade resource of ~4 Moz should not be unreasonable.

That's my spin for the situation...feel free to spin your own and share with us.

2. AEM: Agreed, selling a small chunk of their original investment in PRB was not for gaining "a few dollars". The most plausible one (top of my list) would be to scare others from buying PRB (because AEM does not seem to like Probe anymore) . However, the big fish would not be scared that easily, but this may attract their attention instead.

AEM had some 9.9% of PRB when they bought in, but now the % has been reduced considerably due to additional shares issued by PRB (the latest would be the 6M shares for the lumber people...is there a hold period for those shares, anyone?). But they still have over 5M (5.6) wts to bring the % up. If they exercised them all, then their holding would be over 10% (fully qualified as an insider)...and that would be an interesting situation to watch for us and AEM competitors (some big fish might feel that they must do something, lol).

Note: With additional ounces coming in from the infill, lateral extension, the wedge, extension along the strike beyond the landfall into the newly acquired lands, it would NOT be a surprise to see a total resource estimate (all economical grades for POG of 1300+) of over the magic threshold of 10M oz. Of course, this is excluding extension in depth (imo, Dave should go deeper, at least another 100-200m) and any hits in the East Limb.

goldhunter