Found this International Accounting Standards and their Impact...

Found this International Accounting Standards and their Impact on Resource Industries in Australia

It is old an may have been superceded .

Contents too hard to summarise , on a very hot day, however worth reading all 12 pages for background.

I found this bit which seems to cover situation

CommissioningCosts

Under AASB 1022 commissioningcosts for new major plant items or mines are

capitalised through thedevelopment and construction phases and up to the date of

commencement of commercialproduction. This actual date has provided some

flexibility. Such flexibilityhas in the past been abused with some reporting

entities capitalising expensesto the projects whereas in reality these are operating

losses. Under the proposedIFRS, costs incurred to bring a processing facility to

its normal working state canbe capitalised to the cost of that asset; however,

operating losses incurredprior to an asset achieving planned performance must be

immediately written off.Accordingly, there will be fine lines that reporting

entities and auditors willneed to address

I guess the ramp up of mine to full production (read that as Commercially viable production) might be the key.