It's cost per carat sold that countsMac, when you think in terms of cost per ton, you are thinking a coupole of steps behind, the cost that really counts is cost PER CARAT SOLD.
Forget tonnage, we are not in the tonnage business, we are in the carat buainess.
The market could not care less about how much it costs us to move/process a ton, they think in terms of cost per carat, and not just carat mined and processed, but CARAT SOLD.
Tonnage may be important in seeing how well the plant is working, but nobody really cares if they process a record amount of tons, they want a record amount of carats. And that can easily happen with less than a record amount of tons processed.
Who cares if we should process a record amount of overburden tons?
Forget tons, talk in carats.