The "waste" rock could have been drilled without being included in the BFS. This would not have benefitted the economics of the BFS, but it would prove the mineralization is there and it would also support the case for increasing the mill rate.

The drill results could have been used to update the reserves with a headline like "Copper Fox increases reserves by 18%, extending mine life to 25 years".

Inmet Mining did something similar recently, see here.