Fully agree
@procrastinato, that's why i'm still here.
I had last weekend a more detailled look at COB's PFeas. also a sulphide project with downstream process included in figures.
So i guess for the time being it's the best comparison we have.
They had a profit margin of approx 30 US/t mined ore. Market don't like that and it wasn't sufficient in relation to the Capex figure.
Our Jorc Co-grades are 0,3% higher and we have higher by-credits, together Opuwo could achieve approx +40 US/t higher revenues vs. COB.
They had a strip ratio 4:1 and calculate with variable costs of 1.5 US$/t. Assuming a Opuwo open pit mining strip ratio of 10:1, this disadvantage would reduce profit margin by -10 US/t based on their cost premisses.
Let's further assume processing cobalt/copper/zinc is more complex than processing cobalt/sulphur. Maybe Opuwo is having a disadvantage out of this topic amounting to further -10 US/t.
Derived from this quick (to be honest from the belly) deviation Opuwo's profit margin in the years of open pit could is 50 US$/t vs. 30 US$/t COB. Not considering higher grades in west zone, cheaper labour in Namibia, tax advantages Walvis Bay and and and.
After the last West Zone announcement i'm pretty confident that we have sufficient shallow ore for a longer open pit operation and that we don't have to deal with a high capex underground operation in the next maybe 10-15 years (even more if we work together with Namibia Critical Metals).
COB (and also the rest of ASX Co hopefulls with exception of Nzuri who released figures so far) had a capex/NPV ratio of approx 1:1.
With this higher profit margin and assuming CLA will have for a open pit mining operation similar capex a Capex/NPV ratio of 1:2 is achievable.
No bump here, if anybody is having a more concrete calculation that proves Opuwo is uneconomical he's welcome to share it here. It's easy to make lump sum claims aka 0,11% Co is uneconomical without substantiating such statements.
And that's the story i (still) expect to see and i'm really embarrased and also a bit angry that not a trace of it was shown in SS this week.
(20min delay)