PLS actually covered more components than AJM in their respective reported "cash costs". C2 rather than C1.
Also AJM for example stated FOB (Pt Hedland) and used WMT. As previously pointed out PLS uses DMT and CIF China. This saves you the trouble of trying to estimate moisture content for a given period. It also helps to remove any guess work about freight etc when comparing to company stated or independently published China pricing.
I believe AJM's moisture could vary between 3 and 7% at time of loading which was after it had time to drain post concentration... so the figures stated for production often wouldn't line up with shipment numbers when trying to reconcile production vs stockpile.
If you take a look at MIN Mt Marion numbers (24/07/2020) you will see this effect. Based on the WMT figures alone one might assume they had been heavily stockpiling. Yet the DMT figures told a different story.
Ok in fairness you may struggle, so take Q4 FY20: Produced 146k wmt which equated to 116k dmt, whereas they shipped 114k wmt / 110k dmt. That is ~20% moisture at the plant and ~3.5% at time of shipment for that period.
Thankfully PLS reports using DMT for both produced and shipped product.
IMO the big one lacking from PLS "cash costs" appears to be sustaining capex. What PLS reports as their cash costs is C2 (note your AJM example was C1). C2 includes royalties while benefiting from byproduct credits. So in reality PLS actually include pretty much all those factors you seemed to suggest are lacking.
Not sure why you believe they should include downstream refining as an operating cost for spodumene concentrate. Where does that logic stop? At the chem converter? The cathode maker? The cell manufacturer?
As I've stated, each producer reports cash costs using different methods. PLS is the most comprehensive and it isn't a typo. They clearly state what the figure includes.
Pointing out that peers have different methods to calculate a cash cost, be it C1 or FOB has no real bearing on PLS financials.
Also if you took the time to read the annual report as you demanded of others, you would have learned your operational cost assumption was ~3.6x greater than reality.
(20min delay)