Thanks for sharing. This guy is slick and makes a very compelling argument for the copper bullcase, from his chartered yacht off the Dalmatian coast. Can see him getting a lot more airtime over the coming weeks and months as this green energy story continues to gain traction and sweeps the mainstream media. He's been saying this stuff for 10 years so will be happy that the world is finally listening / he might be about to be proven right.
As the owner of a handful of sub-economic, large tonnage low grade copper porphyries, he's definitely talking his own book though, but his points are still valid. And at a C$30 million market cap (shot up to $40 since this interview went out), his company (CNSX:CBK) is arguably a great call option on (significantly) higher copper prices. Costa Fuego would actually be a good fit for him if he CBK could afford it (which they can't).
Re your observation that "he suggests that at the current price of copper, no new tier one mines will be built when grades are down around 0.4% and lower for large porphyry resources", you won't be surprised to hear that I agree with him.
His $20,000 estimate sounds ball-park like it's right. Brownfield projects should be a bit lower than that and may greenfields will be even higher. But it really depends on the characteristics of the individual projects.
In the last boom cycle, the capital intensity of greenfield projects was mostly in the $10,000 - 15,000/t range and reserve grades were almost exclusively well above 0.4% Cu. Hard to find good data, but this was the picture as per FQM's Sept 2014 comparison of global copper projects (some already built, some in construction and some mooted):
Capex inflation was at its most rampant in 2009-2013 as every TD&H wanted to build a new mine, so 2014 was probably at the peak in terms of absolute $$ capital cost inflation. Since then absolute $$ capital costs would have flat lined or crept up more in line with USD CPI. FX is also a factor though, so non-US/Panama located projects are getting a helping hand lately from weak home currencies.
The main reason why the intensity of the next generation of projects is looking like it will be significantly higher as Kovacevic points out in that video, has more to do with the lower grades they hope to mine (larger, higher throughput processing plants needed for same amount of actual saleable metal output) and the generally less acessible areas they are found in (more off-site infrastructure needs to be built).
Here's some more recent copper capital intensity data from a v quick search (from 2019). Unfortunately, aside from possibly Nueva Union, not many great comps on the list for Costa Fuego.
Here's what NuevaUnion looks like on current numbers for the combined and optimised development project: "With total capex of $7.2 billion for NuevaUnión’s three phases and an estimated lifespan of 38 years, the mine is expected to have an annual production of 224,000 tonnes of copper, 269,000 ounces of gold and 1,700 tonnes of molybdenum, according to a pre-feasibility study from early 2018"https://www.mining.com/newmont-teck-to-invest-152m-in-chilean-copper-gold-project/
Using 3.75 Cu / 1,800 Au / 12 Mo, that's 288ktpa of CuEq LOM which makes the intensity of Nueva Union almost exactly $25,000 per annual tonne of copper equivalent ($7.2bn / 288ktpa).
Take a small discount for the Fortuna half of N/U being up at 4,200 metres ASL, add a premium for the block cave and then apply that intensity to whatever production you think Costa Fuego will average over its LOM. Should give you have an idea of what it's going to cost to build.
(20min delay)