At least some actual/potential investors appear to be confusing...

At least some actual/potential investors appear to be confusing average mining and production costs and the maximum ore which is assumed to be economic to recover. The pit shell references are the maximum anticipated cost of ore that will be recovered at any stage of the project.

The podcast noted a high grade slug that is captured by $500/t and higher pit shells. That means most of that "slug" at the bottom is still $500/t ore. The map below shows the difference between $1,000/t and $1,500/t pit shells. There isn't much difference. If you expand the maximum cost allowed, the pit wall only extends a small amount to the right but you build additional lower margin ore into the plan. If Spod prices are $3,000/t then that incremental ore costing between $1,000 and $1,500/t is sensible to capture, but you don't want to be mining say $1,300/t average cost ore in a $1,000/t price environment.

So, all a US$1,000/t pit shell means any ore that would not be profitable at that price is ignored and left in the ground. It is not the average price, that's much lower. What's more important is they are targeting C1 costs of US$600-$650/t and note things are looking good for hitting that target.

The equally interesting question is if you built this pit, after its construction what would the cost be to go underground and capture the ore to the lower right?
We don't yet have the cost of that ore, but Luke is clearly thinking about it.