Yes there is a lack of clarity, a huge and surprising lack of...

Yes there is a lack of clarity, a huge and surprising lack of clarity. Some companies attempt to explain the difference between starting and end points through mechanism like waterfall charts. Core hasn't done this. Have Core really had >100% pricing errors or is there another explanation. I tried to explore around whether there was another explanation.

When this uncertainty exists, it has multiple negative impacts. Analysts in building their models will tend to chose the conservative option if two options exist. They might also tend to have higher discount rates or other greater contingency assumptions. This lowers their target price estimates.

Uncertainty also impacts investor decisions because it knocks individuals down the confidence scale. Someone that may have been a buyer instead becomes just a holder and not adding to their position. Someone that might have with clarity continued to hold decides to sell. This flips the buy/sell balance and puts pressure on the share price.

Its hard to have confidence in the DFS numbers given the huge variances that have occurred since then. Noting that proviso, the graph below is from the 2021 DFS. You can see a sharp dropoff in OP mining costs toward the end of Grants life which is aligned to earlier comments. You can also see BP33/Carlton were estimated at a very respectable cost range of US$351-$405/t. That will have increased but by how much is a huge unknown. At a 50% increase from the DFS, the C1 for BP33/Carlton would be US$527-$608/t. At 0.70 exchange rates, US$527/t C1 would be A$752/t. If the upcoming BP33 DFS could deliver that or better, there would be less questions around whether core could operate profitably at US$1,000/t prices.