I'm surprised that a former CEO of Rio Tinto would refer to OZ...

I'm surprised that a former CEO of Rio Tinto would refer to OZ minerals ASIC as a measure of underlying cost increases.

Costs are certainly on the way up as we will learn shortly. If prices drop there will be a lot less activity and prices will fall faster than they went up as people scramble for a job to feed the family. Whilst there is a bit of lag naturally in the system high costs are only ever associated with high prices.

The last time I looked at OZ minerals AISC it was negative because at that time the gold grades were so high that the precious metal credits were more than the costs incurred.

I just checked their first quarter 2022 report.

Their total operating cost would have varied to some extent but their cost per pound of copper is all over the place because the amount of revenue delivered is a function of grade and the amount of copper and gold they produced.

Beware of reading anything into AISC.

I think its good to focus on the costs of mining and processing ore which is often buried too deep to find unless you have a lot of time on your hands..

If you look closely at the attached slides you will see how much grade effects the volumes of metal produced quarter to quarter which drives the cost per pound of copper.