Freeheels info is spot on. To be honest I find mining 1.5% Cu underground a fool's errand. The Kalahari copper belt deposits are narrow and not as high-grade as thier DRC and Zambian counterparts. However, if these deposits are recumbently folded (I.e. folded like a Viennetta ice cream), then many kilometers of copper mineralisation can be packed into a smaller space and thus extracted profitably.
I would have T3 over any redox-style deposit anyday, simply because of its geometry. If the grades of the redox-style deposits in Botswana were higher I would change my mind, but they are not.
That's why T3 will make lots of money, and Cupric will make sweet FA with thier moderate-grade underground operations.
If you need a benchmark for UG mining costs, check out Ivanhoe's DFS for Kamoa (arguably a less favourable UG mining geometry to Cupric's steep ores). I go back to the West Ozzie gold analogy again. If Cupric think they can make money mining 1.8% Cu (after dilution) by UG methods, that's equivalent to trying to mine 2.4 g/T Au grade underground. Crazy.
MOD Price at posting:
4.6¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held