AVL Chart, page-3023

Not to disrespect your work as I can follow your numbers but this is nothing more than a thought experiment for me.

Let's look at your example of an equivalent gold mine. You had 2.7Moz reserve at 4.7g/t gold in Australia as an open pit mine. 

If you assume 90% recoveries (standard for gold) then you need 7.35 tonnes per oz of gold produced. That means to target a 250koz p.a production profile over an 11 year LOM you would need a 1.85Mt p.a plant. For a gold project that probably costs $A250m for plant and pre production capex. That is half what a V project costs. This increases NPV by $250m or so off the bat.

Secondly you have condensed LOM to 11 years from AVL being 18 years for that level of production which increases NPV.

AVL at $13/lb and AISC of something like $8/lb is annual cashflow of 22m lbs x $5 = US$110m per annum cashflow = A$150m 

Gold project at 250koz p.a based on open pit and that grade would probably be under A$1,000 AISC and selling at like A$1,800 (current spot) = A$200m 

However using V at $13/lb is like calling POG at US$1,450 in my opinion. If we use that scenario then the gold project would produce annual cashflow of $A250m.

Don't get me wrong I like V and think it has a future but if you offered me the two above projects I would finance and invest in the gold project every day of the week over the V project. And that is the natural reality of the situation.