Galore and Schaft Creek make sense as combined projects for a number of big level strategic reasons:
- Shared access road to HWY 37 (shared construction, maintenance, control, traffic) - access is everything
- Potentially shared transmission from NTL substation at Bob Quinn (part of the distance)- capex savings
- Potentially sharing a concentrate re-load facility at Bob Quinn (Galore pipeline terminus, SC off-hwy truck re-load) - opex savings.
- Galore needs more time to explore and optimize the economics, SC is much more de-risked and ready to go with its own exploration potential
- Both projects are the keystones to the Golden Triangle
- Managing both projects increases the potential for investment (housing & community project) in the community at Bob Quinn to long term, stable and potentially cheaper labour from Bob Q. i.e. If Teck owned both projects, it could build a self sustaining community at Bob Quinn (commuting distance to both projects) vrs big expensive (opex) camps at both locations. Could reduce the necessity (as per PFS) to fly in labour to SC ($$).
Of course this scenario would require a major partner with TCK. The deal for NG's share of Galore could be a key piece of forming this partnership.
