All of the deposits of interest for the Willow Creek property refer to the potentially surface mineable coals. In addition to “Deposit Types” the GSC Paper 88-21 also refers to “Geology Types”, which are a definition of the amount of geological complexity, usually imposed by the structural complexity of the area. The classification of a coal deposit by “Geology Type” determines the approach to be used for the Resource estimation methodology and the limits to be applied to certain key estimation criteria.

“The present study only addresses coal seams of the Gething Formation. There are seams present in other formations of the sequence in this area but their distribution and commercial significance has not yet been determined for the Willow Creek Property.

The Gething Formation seams of interest in this study are those numbered from 1 through 8 and Seam A. Another seam, referred to as Seam 9, achieves mineable thickness from place to place. This seam is not being considered for mining as part of the present study. There are other seams in this formation but these are too thin to be of economic significance.”

A minimum coal thickness of 1.0m is required to meet the criteria for inclusion to the mineral resource. Partings were considered separable from the seam if they were greater than 1.0m, and non separable if less than 1.0m. If the parting was greater than 3.0m, the seam packages were modeled separately, and considered as a repeat.

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Willow Creek is similar to other Rocky Mountain multi- seam operations and will be mined using truck and shovel methods with separate unit operations for coal and waste.

The mine plan developed for this PFS is based on selective mining techniques and equipment typical of this type of complex coal deposit. Multiple pits and multiple coal products for coal markets are scheduled. The waste rock management and disposal plan involves external dumps for the production in the earlier years of the schedule, followed by backfilling of mined out pits as they are developed. The backfilling is integral to the plan on a capacity, productivity, and mining cost basis. Waste rock dumps also are configured during the operating schedule to reduce post closure and reclamation costs.

The development of the mine focuses on opening backfill areas on the Seam 4 footwall in the northeast section of the design pit. This staging has the added benefit of postponing some final high wall developments until later years. This staging has the added benefit of postponing some final high wall developments until later years. Pit 4N1, the lowest pit on the north face, is designed based on 100% prices of coal but since this pit is primarily HCC, which tends to have less price fluctuations than PCI coal, this has a lower risk than the PCI pits.

At Year 4 there is an option to step in the high wall on the PCI pits, 7N2 and 7C2, without causing access or dump development problems. ........

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