The mine(s) is likely to be open-pit first then UG. The strip ratio may be higher say 12X. The good news and counteracting factor is that the freer dig and freer milling nature of the ores as well as labour rates in CI tends to result in a lower production cost e.g Tietto seemed to do it at a C1 cost of less than USD $1000/oz.
That probably means a lot more of the lower-grade halo will make it to ore the cut-off being around 0.25 g/t in turn lowering the strip ratio. The other thing Tietto found was with the rapid leaching and low reagent costs mean they could run a heap leach on the lower grade material less profitable to put though the plant. I assume this will be an option for AUE since the metallurgical tests to date are trending that way. Certainly justifies doing the optimisation and grade tonnage work.
Sorry if I've gone into too much detail/speculation.
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