While there's been massive publicity about Core's horrible cost...

While there's been massive publicity about Core's horrible cost structure, I would suggest that they aren't the basket case that they have been made out to be (at least regarding Grants restart). Core has made the statement below that they are poised to resume operations as a low-cost lithium producer. Many may be thinking WTF regarding that statement but I believe it comes down to pit shapes.


Core mining plan has been to mine Grants to its ultimate pit walls from the start (from a pit width perspective). This means the upper layers of the pit have huge strip ratios. The lower layers have progressively smaller strip ratios. Core's mining pause occurred after most of this high strip ratio work had been completed but before making any serious progress on the low strip ratio work. The remaining Grants mine would appear to have a low strip ratio which will assist Core to be low-cost on restart.

While the numbers have changed from this June 2018 pre-feasibility study, this provides an idea of the level of distortion between the early and late Grants mine cost structure. Year 1: Massive strip ratio (23.9:1) and high cost. Year 2: Low strip ratio (3.7:1) and low cost.