Well, the cost/benefit of toll treating vs building own plant...

Well, the cost/benefit of toll treating vs building own plant and self processing is marginal at the size of the resources of each of the respective parties in the region. However, one thing that is a known quantity is that if any of the Youanmi explorers choose to toll treat at one of the other nearby mills, they are likely to get ripped off by the mill owners and the costs of toll treatment are likely to be higher than first thought.

If they formed a JV to jointly build a new processing plant, they each get to realise the savings of reduced transport costs, they each have a hand in operating the mill and importantly a keen eye on the operating costs and production rates to ensure they're not getting screwed on toll treatment, they all benefit from economies of scale to reduce their respective AISC and therefore increase profitability.

It's not so much a matter of what one's MC is today as that can fluctuate wildly as each company progresses from discovery to production, it's about what is the most economic way to extract the most value from the resource that's in the ground. After all, extracting maximum value from the gold in the ground = maximum value for shareholders such as yourself.

For example another poster in here mentioned that transport costs to the nearest mill is 0.5g/t, which based on the current resource of SPX is equal to US$22.25m, which could be saved. Isn't that better in shareholder's pockets??