How can Teck justify paying such a premium, I don’t believe this will be an easy approval for the Teck board.

This is a specious argument. Teck will pay the value that they think it is worth, or at the very least what Elmer & co. thinks it's worth.

For example, they paid $4 per share for a million shares in Providence Resources when their stock was trading at $2 on the open market.

Here's some commentary on that deal from a year ago after the stock price dropped significantly: The fact remains that Teck bought its shares at $4 per share. As an exploration play this fits with the strategy Teck employs with a number of junior companies at any time to leverage their own activities. With important results to arrive, this strategy employed by Teck seems to much more long term than the shuffling that seems to be going on in the short term. If the valuation made by Teck is accurate, then today's price of $0.57 is an absolute steal. But it's understandably tense for those who are willing to stick it out to see that though expectations were perhaps unreasonably high in the project, at the core this is still a project of merit. http://www.vantagewire.ca/articles/providence-resources-and-eagle-plains-shares-overly-active-upon-gold-drilling-results-31678