Some interesting points, Jerry.

Let's not forget that whenever it was that Kinross took a look, it would have been a while back when they made their decision that they liked what they saw; it's not as though this all took place in the last 3 weeks. Maybe that's why Sage was trenching and stripping in weather that was really not conducive to that sort of thing ( I'm sure the crew doing the work would agree, as they must have struggled with water freezing up, getting soaking wet in sub-zero temps, etc etc.)

I wonder when the last site visit was, or if these sorts of things are ongoing and we just don't know it? And I wonder if Kinross started licking their chops about the same time the alleged tongue-in-cheek "headframe" comment made its debut?

I wish I could discern a little bit more from what we know, but the sum total of what we don't know makes it nigh impossible to gauge what's going on.

I find it also interesting that while our Kodiak neighbors are continuing on with multiple roles now that their head cheese Chornobay has retired, that a major player wouldn't step in and graciously offer his "expert advice" on a deposit of this type in exchange for a seat on the board of directors, some nice options, and all the inside info he could absorb. Any time there's the perception of blood in the water, any sign of weakness, one generally finds out ( eventually) that there were advances made. Maybe this has already happened and they were told "Thanks, but no thanks". Could be that they approached Kodiak first, and were rebuffed, and then thought "What the heck...we'll just go right next door and get our fill of information that way."

Something to think about, virtually no facts were harmed in the making of this post...ha ha!!!

GLTAL