RE: Mining costs - open pit vs. underground?Open pit operations are bulk tonnage by nature - the mill and the amount of rollingstock tends to me much larger than for an underground operation. Most majors looking at copper gold situations actually prefer sulfide deposits because the throughput is much higher but this comes with most capital costs. No way to know for sure until they know how many tons per day they would be mining but, in the current cost environment, a capial cost of one billion including infrastructure is quite possible. Look at Novagold or Northern Orion or Arizona Star. That's what one of these suckers costs these days