The original announcement said"The capital cost of the project...

The original announcement said

"The capital cost of the project has been estimated at US$249.5M, with an additional US$13M required to advance the Lode 1 oxide gold cap heap leach plant into early production."

I interpret this to mean that once you spend $249.5m on the other project the gold leach plant only costs an extra $13m.

$13m seems very low for any sort of stand alone mining operation unless you are using contractors for everything. I assume there are few facilities nearby, so you have to build accommodation, offices, connect power and water, etc. Some of these would be paid by the govt. Look at Australian cap costs for some mines currently starting production.

G