I've been doing some searching through news releases for various companies (some producing things other than gold) and a recurring number keeps coming up - around $500 million for start up costs for open pit mines of similar scale. As the article plums posted said mine costs range between $100 million and $1 billion, it seems like a valid starting point for our wild speculation.

If we take a cost of $300 an ounce to get the gold out of the ground (my searches gave costs running between $100/ounce and $450/ounce) at todays gold price of $1100, we get

500,000,000/800 = 625 000 ounces just to break even

If we add in Aurum's cost for a mill of $140 million, we get

640,000,000 / 800 = 800 000 ounces required to break even.

I realize this is very basic estimating, and there are other factors involved, but, even if gold goes back down to $900, there has to be just over 1 million ounces to break even, and most are estimating more than that already. The point is, I feel, this will make a profitable mine that barring any strange happenings will go to production for somebody.

Chris