Banter and general comments, page-37756

The following bullet points collectively point towards Core having a low cost structure in the future. If I'm the king of hypothetical, many of these will be hypothetical. Which of the 16 points below is wrong?

• The pegmatite being mined in Grants pit is long, fairly thin and nearly vertical
• Weathering means the first mineralised intercepts into Grants started about 50m down hole. There's a lot of waste rock to move before getting any ore.
• Grants pit is basically an inverted cone. Wide at the top, narrow at the bottom
• Grants is mining open pit so they can't take out lower layers until the upper layers above are removed
• For each progressively deeper layer, less waste rock needs to be removed
• Because Grants is vertical and has similar widths vertically, each progressively lower layer yields a similar amount of ore material but with less waste rock
• Mining costs are primarily driven by the amount of rock being shifted and whether that is waste rock or ore. High strip ratios are high cost. Low strip ratios are low cost. Other factors matter but this one is key.
• Through to December, Core has been mining the expensive bit where there's a lot of waste rock and not that much ore. This had the effect of creating high strip ratios and high costs
• The bottom of Grants pit contains an area with low strip ratios that will be low cost to mine. This bottom of the pit area has similar to and then lower than PLS.
• The remaining life of mine strip ratio at Grants could even be lower than the remaining Greenbushes life of mine strip ratio
• Core is significantly advanced in removing the waste rock (>80%) but is only about 35% complete in removing the Grants lithium reserve meaning the remaining mining activity is less than 20% of the waste rock and 65% of the planned ore.
• Core is close, if not very close to the point where costs fall dramatically
• Low cost mines are profitable to mine
• Core is close to Darwin port so transport logistics are a small part of the overall cost structure
• Core is using DMS which is a cheaper concentration method than flotation
• Mining costs are, on-average Core's largest cost so if they are high Core will have a high cost structure and if they are low, Core will have a low cost structure.