@Bayhunter
Unlike the '22 restart study which gave figures for capex and sustaining opex requirements, there is no headline mention of sustaining opex required in the first couple of years of operation. Cost and revenue models for each of the three studied operating scenarios (contract mining scenario chosen by CMY) are provided in the MEC report and of course the cost and revenue modeling feed into the headline NPV and IRR. (See below). Unfortunately they don't tabulate the costs and cash flow figures year on year, but only provide them visually in a chart.
You raise a good point that they certainly haven't highlighted the need for almost $200M of sustaining opex in the first year of the mine schedule due to the 99.4% waste component. But that is not an unusual scenario for an open pit plan.
What you are objecting to is there is no mention of sustaining operating expense for the first year of stripping almost all waste. That is a business financing matter that is going to have to be considered along with a whole lot of stuff that is yet to be worked out, such as restructuring the debt we are currently carrying, the convertible notes, the SX-EW restart and processing of the reworked heaped ore. I wouldn't usually be invested in any mining speckie that is carrying debt before even having released a PFS but here we all are. There is still a lot of road ahead of us and interest accruing on debt every day. We need to see the SX-EW plan. Will copper cathode production cover the interest bill on borrowings for opex while the sulphide mining and processing ramps up? Will there be a joint venture?
