Give Reason to hold or invest in CXO, page-221

I'd like to think that any competent mine designer would do high level costings for any theoretically possible options. Any that look promising from this initial work would be explored in more detail. When the July 2021 DFS was done, BP33 was a resource of 3.24Mt at 1.51%. Within the most recent update this was 10.5Mt @ 1.53% so its become a 3x bigger project. That may change the most efficient way of moving waste and ore out of BP33 as it will create a longer mine life and through that a longer period of time to get a return on any capital investment.

The brochure notes grades that conveyor belt systems can work with that are far steeper than the proposed 7:1 decline in BP33. If Core were to need to move 1.5-2Mt of waste rock and ore out of BP33 each year then the movement capacity needed is 254t/hr (at 2Mt and assuming 24/7 and 90% uptime). Conveyor belt systems can be designed for over 1,000t/hr so the movement capacities are well within what is technically possible. Convey belt systems should certainly be something that Core does high level design costings on and depending on what that shows, detailed design costing work.

The obvious cascade issue is that conveyor belts take space. If the decline is going to enable vehicle access and a conveyor belt, it may need to be just that little bit wider than vehicle only designs. A conveyor belt system may therefore create additional other costs such as higher decline development costs. Core hasn't done any construction of the decline yet so designs can be amended easily.

Core hasn't provided updated details around the cost of connecting to the Darwin grid, but given the limited physical distance between the mine site and areas powered by this grid, its an option (but again with capital costs). A conveyor belt system may need either this connection to be completed or greater on-site power generation capacity.