Hello LT/Mark

Your post says

"As for the few $B, imo only the PEA will spell out the cheap infrastructure upgrade and using high grade core to start, with 20,000 tpd, a capex well under $500M and a few hundred millions in sustaining capital."

Agreed with that, the PEA may start with a low-ball value (with a low tpd) to get the attention of the seniors. That why people call that "the dream sheet". Quite often, the BFS would be a better starting point. Sometimes this would introduce the rude awakening. Again, the Capex would depend on how big you want the mine to be. For seniors, they would want a large enough deposit (say 10+Moz) and a decent annual production rate (say 0.5 Moz Au/year) so that the operation would last at least (say 20 years).

You are quite correct, PRB might not be able "survive" to get to the stage of the BFS. The seniors are watching closely at this potential 10 Moz deposit. I would pack up and go south to escape the snow if this ever get to about $10/s, may be even before that.

Happy New Year,

goldhunter