"If we avg 1 gm over 20 million tons. That should be enough."

It is not the tonnage but the concentration of the metal in that tonnage that matters most. Of course you need a certain Minimum tonnage with that concentration to be bothered with.

One gram of platinum represents about 50$, that is not enough to pay for operations so do not think of it in those terms (100-150$ needed ).

Where the plus is, IS in the fact that it is not just platinum. Platinum is actually a tertiary metal in the Eagle resource so its quantity does not matter much, it is it's concentration in the ore that it exists in that matters. Looking at the platinum as a single entity actually gives a distorted impression.

As long as the combined metals present in the ore make it profitable to dig the ore out and process then all the platinum has to do is be in sufficient quantity to extract it from the tailings after the primary and secondary metals are extracted ( in many cases some of the metals are extracted simultaneously - depends on the metal and chemistry/process used to extract ). In other words it has to be profitable on it's own to extract it from the tailings.

I look at the situation as simply following:
Copper is in sufficient quantity to cover the cost of operations. Therefore the nickel, platinum and palladium are there as if for free ( pure profit).

Cheers.