The position in the growth pipeline depends on a number of items including project economics, de-risking, project life, metal fundamentals and others. QB2 is an expansion of an existing project and Teck has already made significant dollar investments on the project. They submitted the SEIA last fall and have a feasibility report filed on SEDAR. While I recall the project economics weren't that great they also consider the 12 billion lbs of recoverable cu over 38 years as a steady revenue generator. SC does not have an FS accepted by Teck(maybe they will resolve this with the optimization and resource model) so no reserves booked and they haven't filed for their environmental permits. Both of these things need to be done before SC moves up the pipeline. Teck needs to have a project ready for sanction by the time the cash flow is generated from Fort Hills by the end of 2018. I think the market just needs some clear signs of activity at SC to get the share price moving .

Teck has bundled SC with Galore Creek as a future option in their growth pipeline. Combining those two projects would create an option in the same CuEq class size as QB2 and NuevaUnion. NovaGold has been shopping their 50% of Galore for a number of years now. Someone, like Goldcorp, should move on it while it's still in the bargain bin. So I'm looking for some action on Galore to trigger action on SC.

We're tracking the price of copper while we wait for news. The CUU chart is superimposed on the copper chart.

Based on the last press release, they may not have the resource block modeling done in time to make a decision on a resource update before this year's workplan is released. Ideally we'd like to hear that no RE is required and then Teck would prepare a technical report to file on SEDAR. The technical report would allow Teck to finally book some reserves at Schaft Creek. If they proposed some drilling on the Grizzly(north of LaCasse) or Wolverine targets(south of the Liard zone) that would be welcome. Announcing more churn on studies of stuff would indicate more treading water on this property.

If viability, whatever that might mean, has to be established it would be from Teck to Liard, not to a company that didn't exist when the agreement was signed. If Teck signed an option agreement(which was Salazar and now the JV) that obligation would still be to Liard not to CUU. Since Liard is mostly Teck and CUU then yes it's a moot point anyway. More important is the SC work plan for 2017 that Teck must report before February 28.

Both the Salazar and JV agreements were/are subject to previous agreements including some between Teck and Liard Copper mines Ltd., the most recent of which was signed in 1980. The agreements are listed in Salazar(Appendix B) and the JV only references back to the list in Salazar. So this 4 year reporting requirement has existed for a 36 year period which includes many years where the "viability" of the project would be a struggle to demonstrate. It's not likely to be anything significant, particularly when you look at the major shareholders of Liard. The SCJV owns 85.5% of the shares and CUU holds, outside of the JV, an additional asset of 1.55 % of the shares in Liard. In my experiences with talking to junior mining people they all try to sound as hopeful as possible without revealing anything material. Retail investors still need to do their own due diligence.