Back in September 2019, MLX were operating a small scale Nifty operation (similar to the one proposed).
I take this snip from the September quarterly right before it shut down.
Since May 2019, Metals X had "invested significant resources" to improve efficiencies at the Nifty Copper mine as part of a three-year, $27 million 'reset plan'.
The plan had attempted to expand the resource and reserve base at the site, increasing productivity and reducing costs.
For the September quarter, it cost Metals X USD$14,659 per tonne of copper it mined, almost twice what the market was offering for it.
Now, if you extrapolate what the cost price of USD$14,659 per tonne of copper was in 2019, add inflationary costs, debt costs & additional capex works required. You'll get somewhere in the ball park of USD$20,000-USD$25,000 per tonne. Which, right now, is above double what the market is offering for it despite its recent run in form.
I said $20billion for $16billion of copper, but its more like $30billion to get $16billion worth of copper.
Its still the same project after all these years, funnily enough.
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