The mill Throughput verses Resource size , determines life of mine so do not understand why you state "not many mining outfits do this analysis "
At a within mine gate costing basis the issues were more about first - the issue you previously brought up with "boundinage" , I am not a geo but I am assuming that it is a non contiguous ore body being treated as being contiguous , I would surmise that was because there was a lack of infill drilling , so they just optimistically assumed the ore body was contiguous , result higher strip ratio and likely higher dilution as well so lower grade .
Secondly their costs of ultimately getting ore onto the ROM pad were higher than the best in the small to mid sized mines .
I worked out the cost per BCM of rock moved , for CMM compared to CAI , CAI was around 50% higher per BCM moved for what ever reason .
Unfortunately all the hard drive disc on my computer has been lost so I can not reprint the numbers ,
Yes would be interesting to see what the differences would be in potential profitability with different methods of processing , you mention vat leach and not heap leach , would have thought that would have also been an option (as Saturn and REX minerals have been proposing )
(20min delay)