In short that statement means that CUU will leave more of the lower grades in the ground and concentrate on higher grades for better business. Leaving lower grades in the ground reduces the 'tonnage' that will be mined.

Not every bit of copper mineralization will be mined since it is too much trouble and cost for what is smelted. From the quote below, there is lots of rock under 0.25% Cu Eq. Elmer chose 0.20%.

Note that the overal average grade for the SC deposit increased by 17% to 20%. For example, Measured became 0.36% in July 2011 vrs 0.30% in the older RE (an increase of 20%). That is huge for a 26 year +++ mine.

Elmer explains for the July 2011 RE (my underline, this quote preceeded the quote in the last post):

" b. This resource estimate reports significantly higher average copper grade in the Measured mineral resource (0.36%) category, the Indicated mineral category (0.27%) and the Inferred mineral resource (0.24%) category compared to the Measured mineral resource category (0.30%), the Indicated mineral category (0.23%) and Inferred mineral resource category (0.14%) set out in the preliminary feasibility study on the Schaft Creek deposit dated September 2008.

"Elmer B. Stewart President and CEO of Copper Fox stated, "The completion of the resource estimate is a great milestone for Copper Fox. Our primary objective now is to complete the feasibility study for the Schaft Creek project as soon as possible. The strategy for the resource estimate was to eliminate areas of very low grade mineralization and therefore reduce grade smoothing. The updated resource estimate shows that the average metal grades for the deposit remain relatively constant up to a 0.25% copper equivalent cut-off, above which the tonnes decrease significantly with a corresponding increase in the average metal grades. The 2011 drilling program is focusing on the higher-grade mineralization intersected in the Paramount zone in 2010 with the objective of defining a higher-grade "starter pit" and increasing the tonnage and average grade of the metals in this zone. Copper Fox expects to complete a resource estimate update for this zone after completion of the 2011 drilling program."

Base Case:
Copper Fox has selected the 0.20% copper equivalent ("Cu Eq.") cut-off for its base case resource estimate. A 0.12% Cu Eq. cut-off was the minimum grade of copper equivalent estimated by AMEC required (using the estimated copper recovery rate, the milling and sales cost) to break-even on an operating cost per tonne basis. In adopting a more conservative approach to optimize the economics, Copper Fox has selected a higher cut-off grade to increase the average copper grade per tonne while reducing tonnage."