Flinders should be a low cost mine to operate. Whilst this may...

Flinders should be a low cost mine to operate. Whilst this may be the case, it ignores the 1 to 2 billion dollars up front capital required to establish a mine before even a single tonne of ore has been dug up plus the hugh cost of transporting it to port.
Low cost mines are really ones that are operating now because they require little or no up front capital expenditure. Of course FMG is not in this category because of the high cost of servicing their huge dept but BHP and RIO are because they don't have large up front cost as they paid for their mines many years ago. It's misleading of Flinders to talk about a potential low cost operation as it ignores this huge up front expenditure.