First of all the grade of concentrate they are targetting to feed into the hydromet plant is about half of what is customary for feed into smelters, so that would need an additional discount. You simply can't compare concentrate to concentrate, as this is a different flowsheet that is simply not amendable to comparison. The BSX project key feature is use of a hydromet plant, and vertical integration, if you were to compare it to a traditional concentrate to smelter operation you would have a different flow sheet, capex and cost.
Secondly, they don't have an AISC of $3.50/lb, refer to page 10 of the SS. This will be lower end of cash cost (and before royalties, although I would be surprised if they would be any at $ 3.50). I hope we agree that AISC will be higher than cash cost. This is also pre tax, although at 3.50/lbs no need to worry about tax - other than export tariffs if you would export concentrate (not applicable for refined product).
During the presentation the CEO mentioned both 3.50 and 5.50/lbs as breakeven. He is kind of winging it imho, I was greatly surprised any comparative number was suggested as a typcial concentrate to smelter operator. The flow sheet and cost analysis is fundamentally different, they would need to draft a whole new study.
I don't understand the (retail) market's obsession with comparing this with concentrate to smelter operators. It isn't and it will not be. Being vertical integrated, and using a hydromet plant, is the key feature of this company (and I believe for many mining companies in future).
Furthemore they are funded to DFS (so they claim), so if I were them I wouldn't care much about shareprice and newsflow. That may become relevant again when they raise capital for capex - which will come into play end of 2021/beginning 2022 the earliest. I believe the only reason why they rushed out the SS is that they promised times ago that they would do that in Q3 2020, but basicly it is a non event. I assume the PFS to be materially different.
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