I haven't seen these wild Capex presumptions. What I have seen so far is folks arguing that Capex should be higher than the 2008 PFS because of increased production, inflation since 2008, and the rather significant amount of majour projects in the BC NW region that may lead to boom type prices. The rationale for increased Capex included the examples of other majour projects realizing greatly expanded Capex.

What I have seen is some folks confusing reduced OPEX costs (NTL power supply for one) with lower Capex costs.

Take the 2008 PFS Capex: $2.950B @ 1000ktpd production

(Coarsely*) Scale it up to the 1200ktpda production 1200/1000 X $2.950B = $3.54B

Inflate this scaled up Capex using the Bank of Canada inflation calculator: http://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/

$2.95B (2008) => $3.07B (2011) [no increased Capex cost, just inflatin since 2008][

$3.54B (2008 coarse scaled to increased production) => $3.69B

I think these Capex #'s are in the 'ballpark' or 'in-line with 2008 capex cost'.

*Coarse (overestimate) since things like the road, airstrip, camp, powerline etc will not be scaled up to meet new production