I'm not totally sold on the Kone project tbh rb, there are some...

I'm not totally sold on the Kone project tbh rb, there are some major red flags for me.

Note that some of those DFS costs might already have risen 20-30% since February, so the already monumental capex of US$544M might actually be conservative.

Agree the project returns are ok without being amazing. The enormous mill they will require (11Mtpa) is dictated by the low-grade nature of the orebody, so the project needs scale to be successful.

When your average deposit grade is not much above your economic cog this introduces a mining risk called classification risk. This means it is easy to mis-classify ore as waste (ore goes to waste dump), and waste as ore (waste goes to mill), because practically it will be difficult to differentiate between them during mining.

The low deposit grade also means the project financials are extremely sensitive to even small drops in the milled grade. An actual mill grade of 0.70 g/t vs. an expected grade of 0.80 g/t will have a huge impact on cashflow.

I think the project has potential, but preferably at a higher pog. Imo there are much better development opportunities in West Africa, and the wider continent.

All imho of course.