I don't expect you to understand Croc. Perhaps you need to have...

I don't expect you to understand Croc. Perhaps you need to have a mining engineer walk you through the Excel spreadsheet that Bara Consulting used to calculate the NPV. You will find operating costs are a negative cashflow that grow at the discount rate over the life of the project and offset the NPV by a larger amount than capital costs which are buried in the company's balance sheet (of assets) and aren't subject to the discount rate.

The comments above are relevant to understanding how accounting decisions can fluff up the NPV. Furthermore, the inclusion of low grade material as an asset in the balance sheet is in no way a guarantee that the low grade material is an asset as distinct from a liability. In such a small plant it is questionable whether the rehandle cost of feeding low grade material through the plant in future years will be profitable.