RE:Apologies to True BelieversI think these are all good questions that you've raised. My reply by converting it into a gold deposit model isn't dupliceous, it merely asks the question. Is a road accessible 33 million tonne open pit mine grading 2.8 gpt potentially economic? What do you need, given drill blast load haul costs are really well known, it comes down to strip and processing. It looks like a 3:1 strip which seems pretty good to me. So dropping $40 to $30 ot even $20 to mine a tonne of ore looks doable.
Then it is processing costs. Granted, basic flotation circuits at this size should run somewhere around $15 per tonne AND then you have transport and hydrometallurgy. Most base metal mines either process or sell their concentrates at 3rd party smelters. Nico is odd and needs special treatment, hence the vertical integration. Who knows what this will be.