Some Recent CapEx NumbersGeee,
I was reading the April 22, 2010 BMO Precious Metals outlook and came across some interesting numbers on CapEx that indicate that my choices for CapEx may not be as "low ball" as you have implied.
Specifically, from
Fig 14: Projects Scheduled for Completion or Entering Commercial Production
Company, Mine, CapEx
Agnico-Eagle, Meadowbank, $896M
Anatolia, Çöpler, $190M
Centamin, Sukari, $265M
Eldorado, Efemçukuru, $152M
Goldcorp, Peñasquito, $1,600M
Great Basin Gold, Burnstone, $178M
IAMGOLD, Essakane, $443M
Polyus, Blagodatnoye, $419M
Randgold, Tongon, $280M
Not saying these numbers are any more indicative of the CapEx XRC will require but these are interesting and strongly suggest that it is still possible to bring a world class mine into production for US$1B to US$2B. Meadowbank and Peñasquito are certainly of comparable scale, complexity and reflect the current mine construction costing environment -- historical numbers may be off because of implementation mistakes or critical shortages (e.g. for a while tire costs were off the map in terms of price because of a world wide shortage).
So I still stand by my US$1.5B Caspiche CapEx assumptions
https://www.goldminerpulse.com/blogs/exeterResourceValuation.php
as a reasonable starting point for a prudent investor to start researching from. If someone has better local knowledge of cost factors then they can easily scale my fair market projects up or down to anticipate the likely future market valuations.
Thanks again for your comments.