The southwestern half of the property appears to host generally shallow-dipping strata while a broad, shallow syncline, containing Upper Cretaceous strata of the Dunvegan and Paskapau Formations is shown to be present in the south. A sharp, anticline cored by strata of the Hulcross and Boulder Creek Formations is present in the eastern part of the property. The fold axis of this anticline trends NW-SE and plunges in both directions.

The Gordon Creek area of the Flatbed Property, where the coal resources have been defined, is located along the southwestern limb of the anticline. The strata along the southwestern limb dip approximately 11° towards the southwest. A major high-angle thrust fault bisects the Gordon Creek area.

The thickness of unconsolidated overburden observed in the various drillholes ranges between approximately 11.28m (from drillhole FD17-02) and 92.15m (from drillhole FD17-01). Most of this appears to consist of glacio-fluvial or glacio-lacustrine material. At its contact with the unconsolidated overburden, Shaftesbury Formation lithologies are often weathered and highly broken to semi-coherent for the top 3.05m (FD17-02) to 13.64m (FD17-01).

A total of 8 main coal seams are present within the Gordon Creek area; one minor seam (Seam C) is also present. Seam nomenclature used in this report follows that used currently at the T rend operation and at Babcock. In ascending order, the main seams are labelled as K, J, G, F2, F1, E, ........

A conceptual mine plan proposes the longwall operations be accessed through a shaft/slope combination to the uppermost seam, then progress to the lower seams by slope extensions and inter-seam raise shafts.

Underground production begins in Year 1 with continuous miner (CM) and road header (RH) development in Seam B. The first longwall panel would be ready for production late in Year 2. Production of ROM coal feed to the CPP averages 3.60 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) with clean coal averaging 1.85Mtpa.

Six seams were identified as having potentially mineable resources. These were Seams B, D, (Zone) F, G, J, and K. Seam G was the most limited due to interburden thickness between the bottom of Zone F being less than 15m over most of the area, and the coal seam thickness being less than 2m over a significant portion of the identified resource area.

Development is envisioned to be accomplished with both continuous miner (CM) fleets and a road header (RH) fleet. The CM section fleet is projected to operate shuttle cars, mobile roof bolters, feeder-breakers, and load-haul-dump (LHD) scoops. The CM fleets are projected to be deployed in the longwall gate roads and bleeders, and in the main development areas around shaft bottoms. The RH fleet is projected to operate with two road headers, extendable conveyance, stage loader, pass by bolters, and LHD diesel scoop. Roadway openings are designed to average 5.5m wide and average 2.5m high. Development ........

The CPP will be required to process an estimated maximum of 5.0Mtpa of ROM coal to produce 2.6Mtpa of clean coal.

Handling and processing of coal typically occurs within the confines of the Coal Handling and Preparation Plant (CHPP) which is located within the plant site area. The plant has two components; the Coal Handling Plant (CHP) as well as the Coal Preparation Plant (CPP). The CHP receives raw coal from the mine(s), sizes it and feeds it to a stockpile or to the washery, or CPP. Clean coal is then typically conveyed and loaded for transportation to port, while refuse from the washing process is loaded for transportation to disposal facilities.

Stantec has estimated an overall yield of 51% for washing the various coal seams to a range of 8% to 9% product ash (adb) over the LOM. In general, a CPP for this application would be expected to use a combination of heavy media cyclone, reflux classifiers or spiral concentrators and froth flotation processes to remo ........