The Schaft Creek project is considered a long-life mineral asset and it will produce minerals for many decades. Dodger, I will explain why the joint venture has decided to take this path for the better. First, many mining corporations in the industry are re-valuating and assessing their assets and development plans in connection to their mining "project". Currently the mining industry is suffering from poor market conditions as metal prices continue to decline and project financing is selective and at an historical bottom as private equity firms, banks, and majors are allocating their investment capital to "smaller" mineral projects becuase it is safer and less capital intensive. There are many companies changing their corporate strategies and plans to reflect this macroeconomic environment. Debt and deflation are major themes causing great concern in these troubling times within the global market. Companies are reducing spending on infrastructure and project build-ups. Copper fox and Teck are adapting to this new mining environment, so to obtain interest from the community we need to showcase a dynamic and versatile mineral project. The joint venture will provide options to illustrate a highly viable asset able to produce in all market conditions. As I stated, many companies are re-inventing their projects and implementing operational change to their development plans as the financing scene has dramatically transitioned to reduce and migrate risk in hopes of improving profitabiity and fiscal management. As an example I will use a mining company as my case study that is emulating Teck's strategy and has similar goal ambition. A company known as "Exeter Resources" also has a extremely large mineral project that will produce immense amounts of gold for decades to come and has a long mine-life.

In relation to the Schaft Creek project Elmer and Teck have not decided to take away any resources or profitabiltiy from the deposit! If anything, the project has become more attractive and economic! Once the Optimization studies conclude and a revised economic study is published it will showcase different options and case scenarios just like how Exeter exhibited in their new document:

http://exeterresource.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Exeter_news_140506.pdf

So why is Copper Fox and Teck doing this "potential" 12 year mine life? If you read the above link you will get a better sense of understanding to this question and realize this is the right direction in these current market conditions. The idea of starting off with an "initial" smaller mine at the beginning is to increase efficiency and improve all aspects of a mining project such as:

- IRR

- NPV

- lower payback period (reduce risks)

- ROI

- Lowers CAPEX and OPEX (effective capital spending)

- Total cash costs reduced

- waste rock/strip ratio

Shareholder worry about reduction in project economics and profitability is not warranted at this time as the new look of Schaft Creek will be quite the opposite and these corporat initiatives will actually greatly improve the attractiveness and economics of the project to buyers! The investing community and industry will welcome this development as the scaling options will be realistic to create a plan for "mine expansion" which will allow management to focus on higher grade zones of mineralization and lowering CAPEX. When Schaft Creek inevitably expands its mining operations and production inputs, the future producer will utilize cashflows to finance future CAPEX when they expand the pit and mine life:

I could literally write an essay on this topic and theme but to make my point only a few paragraphs are needed to show everyone this is a very positive development. I believe Schaft Creek could have a mine life of 100 years but the way mining companies are developing their projects now is more effective and efficient in current market conditions (as CAPEX has become a major problem in the sector. Mining projects that want to be sold today or soon need to showcase high project economics which is favouring smaller mines now due to metal prices, better paybacks, and financing options. To reiterate, the overall profitability is not reduced and degraded. This does not negatively impact us in any situation but actually makes the project more attractive and economic due to fiscal/responsible spending and scaling options. The mine life is not actually 12 years in length rather the initial start-up phase in production which will ramp up as financial factors dictate the next steps and mining majors understand this process. Dodger there is nothing to worry about here. The next economic study (after all optimization is completed) would showcase the many options and case scenarios available in mine development and production.