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Message: Tyhee both visit at Roundup 2010

Jan 20, 2010 10:36PM

What a day. I had a conflict with a work assignment that took me to vancouver (realted to the V2010 olympics), and looked like I would not make it to Roundup, but I got out for a few hours and made it after all.


I talked with Dave Webb, Val Pratico (geologist), and saw the CFO and one other board member. Another investor from here at Agoracom joined in.

I put a lot of questions to Dave Webb, but before I even spoke with him, I spent a few minutes observing the Tyhee peple in their discussions with people stopping at the Tyhee booth.

What I saw was a very active, continuous series of discussions. As Roundup is not about promotions, but rather networking of mining engineers, financers, contractors and other mining people, it was nice to see that Tyhee is very engaged. Their location is excellent, as people really do have to walk past Tyhee several times, in the comign and goings at the Roundup.

I also observed that quiet confidence that Dave and the other have, in taking evertying in stride and engaging with people without having that "come to us" appearance I saw at many of the more quiet booths.

Form Dave's answers to my questions, I now believe the following:

1. Viking gold has topped out, and today's rush to 15 cents, and close at 12.5 is not based on anything to do with Tyhee. Any explraiton work by vikign along the periperhy of Tyhee is not all that interesting to Tyhee, other than that if Viking makes a discovery, they could make a deal with Tyhee to process the ore. The viking properties have been explored a lot in the past, by other companies, and even some that some of the Tyhee key people have been involved in. So now that Viking has exceeded my expectations in the near term, I don't see much potential there for quite a long time. If it drops back to below 8 cents or so, I may buy more.

2. When Tyhee sets up an office in YK, it looks like it won't be at that empty ACME building on the flight line. Rather, it will be a conventional office downtown, like the Diavik office on Franklin ave. Tyhee will also need a staging or lay-down area, likely in the industrial section in the Kam Lake part of town.

3. Yes, Tyhee will need a larger office in Vancouver, when the time comes. Not soon (not in 2010).

4. The timeframe from DAR submission to GNWT responses, with some rules that they have 30 days to confirm completeness and 60 days further for some other reply/correctness check, Tyhee expects a rather quick answer of Yes, No, or do more on "X" areas. After that, if there is no requirement for public hearings or other steps, it could be as soon as Sept 2010 that Tyhee will have a good idea if they will be approved or not, even if it can take many more months for the Premier to actually sign the licencse. So financing needs to be worked out and ready to conclude basically by the end of the year, or solid enough for Tyhee to make a decision about moving forward with construction. As it will take more than just a few monts for whatever finaicing deal to be carried out, the Feb/march 2011 winter road season, while possible, is not likely for the heavy construciton stuff (like mine roller mill and other key stuff) to have been sourced, bought, and transported in time for the 2011 ice road. However, getting some heaving eqiupoment up, to start site preparation work, is quite doable. If a decision to move forward is made, say in December 2010, then some equipment may be headed up in Feb/March 2011. Pouring concrete and building the plant etc wont' be until after Feb 2012 ice road. Operations would start in 2013.

5. The finaincing deal, from what I understand, will be something like 60% debt, adn 40% eqiuty, but not all of the 40% equity needs to be from the issue of shares. There can be some parts generated by some kinds of forward sales commitments.

6. The press release I was expecting to see before round up was a possibility, but DW was a way in London England, an Munich or Frankfurt - "talking to investors".

7. The economics of the pre feas will be better than the preliminary assessment, but it probably won't be based on 200,000 oz / year. More likely about 150 to 180. The lower cost of hydro electric power from NWT power will feature prominently in the economics of the mine, as something like 14 ro so cents / kwh vice the 30 or so cents for diesel power generation on site.

8. I talked to DW about the personnel and experience of the core people, and from what I udnerstand, they have more experience in building and operating a mine, and in underground exploration, than they had at surface based exploration geology. So given that, it seems to me that the company is right-staffed for it's next phase (development) than it was for the exploration phase of it's life. This seems to be true, from what I've seen and learned of they key people. If the financing and mine engineering plans reflect that these key people really do have that talent, then this development phase may go very well indeed.

9. As for the removal of risk and unknowns, once the DAR and Pre Feas are in hand, and mving thorugh MVEIRB to complete the EA, some of the negatives about being in NWT's more stringent envionrmental requirements will become a thing of the past. Also, with RESERVES being valued better than resources, we should see tyhee have a market cap of $200,000,000 by December 2010. That would be about $1.00 or more a share.

10. Many other gold juniors, like the ones in the Dundee and Canacord lists, have had very good share price performance. Tyhee has not performed as well as it's peers in this regard over the last year. To me, that means it's still bieng punished for being in NWT and having the longer EA process to fight through. So when that's behind us, we should see some great strides in valuations.

The above 10 points are my own take on what little I understood of my conversation with DW. I was wrong on viking, as I thought it should rise from 6 to 8 and possibly 12, and yet it hit 15. But if Viking can have such a nice turn-around based on what, it's proximity to Tyhee? On NOT going bankrupt? On a small change in investor sentiment, and a tiny (say $30,000 or so of new investment) pushing SP up 700% since it's lows, imagine how much Tyhee can move when it has RESERVES, a permit, and finaincing for a mine.

So it was worth the effort to rush out and see them today. I look forward to the press release, and the start of the winter driling program.


OH yea, one funny discussion. I asked about the bridge under construction over the Mackenzie river. Appearantly there is a scandal and construction has come to a halt! This is actually good for tyhee and other businesses, as the NWT was going to charge businesses for usign the new bridge. Right now, they can haul their heavy loads up for free in the winter, using the ice road over the river. They do not haul stuff up 6 months before the winter roads go in anyhow, so the bridge really just would benefit local citiziens, in making YK less isolated year round. For businesses like Tyhee, it was not such a big deal. However, other infrastructure spending is important, and Tyhee has been encouraing the Federal Governemnt and other levels of gvt to improve roads, and build a year-round road that helps access for exploration and for Tyhee. Who knows, some of that may bring a windfal.

Last point: NWT has never declined a mine permit. Diavik and the other diamond mine will run out of diamonds in 10 years. The YK and NWT economy are going to need to replace the lifeblood lost when the diamond mines wrap up, so they should be very eager to approved Tyhee's application. ALso, tyhee has put a lot of effort into addressing the fish/animal/water quality/chemistry issues that were sent back to Tyhee as part of the requirements that the DAR has to address. For example, Tyhee had to do a study of an alternative tailings impound, other than Winter Lake, and they had to do a study of an alternative airstrip. In general, they have had to (and have done) a lot of the ea work for them, that MVEIRB should do themselves. This may mean that the DAR will address issues sufficiently well to result in an expeditious approval. I won't hold my breath, as Tyhee does not have a perfect track record regarding timeframes, however it's reason to be a bit optimistic.

in any case, I come away form my visit to the tyhee booth very encouraged that I have stumbled on to a real success story in the making. And I encourage other investors to show up at PDAC or other venues when an opportunity arises. Or pop in to tyhee's main office and introduce yourself. You may find, as I do, that Tyhee has the right pople to take the Yellowknife gold camp thorugh development and into production.

Confidence is high.

SKELEG

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