I have been trying to get my head around small excavation...

I have been trying to get my head around small excavation operation of shallow ore..

I read somewhere that 600 to 1000m3 (cubic metre) per day is doable with an excavator..

So if there was some 150 by 150m of ore at say 1% about one metre wide/thick but about one metre deep..
Thatd mean about 150×150×2 =45,000 cubic metres of dirt to be excavated... half as crap and half as ore...
So 45,000 could be done in about 45 to 75days.. lets round it up to about 3 to 4months (at about 600m3 per day)...

The thing is that the ore tonnage for grade etc gets multiplied by specific gravity of say 2.5 or so..
So half the 45,000m3 of dirt is 22500m3×2.5= 56250 tonnes of ore at say 1% for about 560 tonnes of cobalt...

At 60k usd per tonne pure stuff..
maybe they can crush and sort the 1% stuff to get it improved for lower tonnage..
then maybe get at least 50% of the relative proportional cobalt price considering that artisanal miners get anything from 25% of relative price to about 60% of relative price..

So 50% of 60k usd is 30k usd per tonne cobalt..

560tonnes cobalt by 30,000 usd =16,800,000 usd total revenue..
At 60% tar is 10mill usd at 0.735fx is just under 14mill aud revenue...
going further if 1/3 was operating cost then;

they could get about 10mill aud in a yr of excavating 1% ore 1m thick under 1m of cover over 150 by 150m..
with excavating rate of lowly 200 cubic metres per day over a normal easly 225day work year..

(Just my thoughts ..
Unless i got something horrendously wrong, i can see why they are thinking about it )