If we were to take your pessimistic figures jooooles then we...

If we were to take your pessimistic figures jooooles then we have EBIT of $7 mill (and incidentally company numbers for 90 cent dollar not 85) and a project cost of $32 mill so you conclude 5 year payback.

So if this project was still a some hills with dirt and trees and a couple of drill holes an investor might reckon it is not worth the risk. The point you overlook is that a lot of the capex had been paid and with the recent BBY money should now been completely paid. In other words the capex is sunk. What we have now is cashflows from operations for the existing mine life of 4 years but hopefully (and this is the punt) much longer.

It is incorrect to value the company by calculating an NPV of a project by starting your calculation sometime in the past. Sunk costs are sunk costs. The NPV is future cashflows from now. How much capex has to be spent from now (zero) and how much cashflows is received from now.