Transcription
[Music] Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where in the world you're joining us from today. I see on the list Alaska through to Ghana, through to Australia. So, we've got global coverage, which is always nice to see, and I appreciate all of you for being here for "Stacking the Odds: How Heap Leaching Wins."
Uh, on today's illustrious panel, we have with us Luke Alexander of Newport Gold, George Salamus of Integra Resources, John Gilligan of Liberty Gold, and today's event is going to be moderated and run by Steven Terrion of 3L Capital. Uh, before I throw it over to the speakers today, I want to do some quick housekeeping first.
Uh, this is an interactive event, so please use the chat button in the bottom right of the screen to pose questions to speakers at any time during today's event. Uh, questions about individual securities will be shared with the appropriate teams, so please do feel free to shoot those along. Questions that are on topic for today's event, we are going to try and tackle at the end portion of this webinar.
Today's event, just as you know, is also being recorded and will be available shortly after it closes on both six.com and Six's YouTube page. Last thing before we get into the program, Steve will be sharing his screen today at one point during the event. If you'd like to blow it up larger on your screen, there's a small button in the top right of that view that you can use to enlarge. Uh, that's enough out of me. Steve, I'll throw it to you to get us started today.
Great. Uh, thank you, Romeo. Uh, hello everybody, and welcome to today's webinar, "Stacking the Odds: How Heap Leaching Wins." I'm Steve Tyrion, mining analyst at 3L Capital, and I'll be the moderator today. Whether you're an issuer, investor, a mining industry professional, or an analyst, you're in the right place to explore one of the most cost-effective methods for extracting precious metals in today's markets.
So, for today's webinar, uh, we'll explore the advantages of heap leaching, featuring insights from our panel, which includes the CEOs and the President/COO of leading precious metal heap leach developers, along with a new heap leach producer. We'll hear panelist intros, I'll set the context with key heap leach insights, and then we can dive into a lively panel discussion.
So, I want to start with an introduction of each panel member, and first of all, I want to say thank you, Luke, John, and George, for your time and participation. So, for one to two minutes per panelist, uh, let's focus on your current role and background, a quick summary of your company's heap leach projects, including high-level economics, and then one key achievement or milestone within the last 12 months. We'll start with Luke, then John, then George.
Yeah, thanks, Stephen. And, um, thanks a lot, Stephen, for the, uh, report that you put together, um, you know, why heap leaching ultimately wins out. It was a very comprehensive report, and I'd encourage anyone who's on this call to reach out to Stephen to, uh, get a copy of it. A lot of good insights in there.
Um, in terms of myself, so I spent the first 20 years of my career on the investment banking side of the business. I was in London for 12 years, covering all the big global natural resource funds out of the UK and Europe, really focusing on the mining sector. That's where I got to know, uh, the team involved with, uh, with New Core today, as well as the Enti project. So, our Enti project, it is located in Ghana. Uh, Ghana is a tier one jurisdiction to be operating in. In the last 12 months, one of the big catalysts for us is we did put out a PEA which outlined extremely robust economics. We're now in the process of taking that from a PEA to a PFS. So, doing a lot of the de-risking work to ultimately accomplish that. We'll look to commission that study in the second half of this year and then get it published in the first half of 2026.
And then layered on top of that, you've got district-scale exploration across our project. Very large land package, 248 square kilometers in size. We've identified over 25 targets to date. So, lots of exploration that we're going to be going after. We did announce a 10,000-meter drill program in Q3 of last year, and on the back of a very successful $15 million financing in February of this year, we increased that to 35,000 meters. So, we are aggressively exploring on the project at the moment, which we think will create real value for shareholders, as well as that de-risking from PEA to PFS. We see that as a real catalyst for the company. Uh, when you typically go through that period, you'll get a much higher multiple from the, from the street. And then lastly, you know, management and board, we're aligned with shareholders. We own 15% of New Core. So, we ultimately want to create a lot of value for, uh, for shareholders. So, um, yeah. So, that's, uh, that's New Core and myself.
Great. Uh, John, Steve, thanks very much. And, uh, thanks to you. I won't echo Luke's comments. I thought your, um, your piece on leaching was really, really insightful. Um, and it, it provided a bit of, you know, technical detail, which I think, you know, with leaching, it's a very simple process, but the, the devil's in the detail. And you really need, if you really want to get into, into what's a good leach and what isn't, you have to have some level of understanding of some of the nuance in the numbers. So, and you've started to do that, and I think that's a great education piece.
So, welcome everybody online. My name is John Gilligan. I'm the President and Chief Operating Officer of Liberty Gold. I'm originally a geologist. Um, I've spent time across the world working in lots of different commodities, from gold to copper to uranium. Um, ran a couple of mines, built a couple of mines, one in Chile and one in, um, one in Argentina. And, um, I also worked with SSR Mining, Silver Standard as it then was, when that company purchased the Marigold deposit, um, from, uh, the Barrick Gold Corp JV. Um, and so I was involved in the integration team and and bringing that asset into, into Silver Standard or SSR Mining.
Um, when I got the sort of tap on the shoulder just over three and a half years ago to join Liberty for this thing called Black Pine, I looked at it and I thought, well, that's a dead ringer for Marigold. And, um, you know, we saw the value in that lower grade, simple, basic opportunity of heap leaching, material movement, heap leaching at Marigold, and Black Pine is exactly the same thing. So, um, Black Pine, located in southern Idaho, is our flagship asset. Um, recent catalyst, we produced a PFS late last year outlining a 17-year mine life for a total metal production of 2.2 million ounces. First five years production, 183,000 ounces a year. Life of mine average, 135,000 ounces.
We ran the economics at that point at $2,000 gold and had, and had a lot of heartburn around whether that was too much or not. And, um, today you think, wow, that was, wasn't worth thinking about that. But at $2,000 gold, this thing has a, um, uh, an after-tax NPV, um, at a 5% discount rate of, um, $550 million and, um, internal rate of return of 32%, payback in three years. So, it's a pretty attractive project. Um, running the economics at spot today, it's a $2 billion NPV and payback is just over a year. So, that illustrates one of the key features of, of typically, of leach deposits. They tend to be lower grade, but they can be very highly leveraged to the gold price, and I've no doubt we'll talk a little bit more about that down the road.
Um, going forward, um, we submitted our Mine Plan of Operations to the US Forest Service. So, we started US federal permitting in January. We expect to get our, um, Notice of Intent, which is sort of the next step in the permit process, within six months, and that will put us 24 months away from an approval. And we're looking at, um, construction commencement early '28 with first production late 2028. So, we're an explorer who's emerged into a developer. Like Luke, we have some significant exploration upside on the property. The current resource is 5 million ounces. We see a pathway through to 8 plus, and um, we have a significant footprint to be able to explore over the next few years. So, exciting times for Liberty. Thank you, Stephen.
Great. And, uh, George, thanks, Stephen. And thanks for, uh, putting this together today, by the way. It's a, it's a great panel, great, um, great subject. So, George Salamus, President and CEO of Integra Resources, which is kind of the second iteration of Integra. Integra Gold was a company that, that, uh, we sold, uh, a number of years ago. We kept the band together, so to speak, and and sort of we went off down the road of looking at, um, uh, certain opportunities. Kind of our sweet spot is, is kind of looking at past-producing mining operations, and that was the focus of the company then, seven years ago, with the, uh, the acquisition of Del Mar, a past-producing asset from, uh, that we acquired from Kinross.
Which we thought there was tremendous merit looking at as a heap leach. Uh, we then went on to acquire, uh, a second sort of round of projects with the acquisition of, uh, Millennial Precious Metals. And, you know, suffering the, uh, the slings and arrows of the last five years in the development space, which, uh, John and Luke also suffered, and many of us, we, uh, we decided to make the, uh, strategic decision to look at actually getting into production, um, and, and finding a funding mechanism, uh, that was going to pay for, uh, the other two, the development of the other two assets. And so, there in lies the, uh, the, the crux of the, the basis for the acquisition of Florida Canyon, which is now what puts us into the production space.
And so, in terms of, you know, all of these assets combined, focused on the western US, the, the Great Basin, having this tremendous geology that's really ripe for low-grade, uh, oxide heap leaching. I have worked at these operations before. My, you know, during my 30-year career, I worked for Plaster Dome. I worked at Cortez, but I'm a geologist. I'm not a mining engineer. Let's get that straight. Um, so, you know, we, we find those ounces and typically hand them off.
Um, with, with respect to, uh, what's going on at, at Florida Canyon right now, again, we have this funding mechanism, uh, that's going to fund the development of the other two development projects that we have in the Great Basin, all of which total about 10 million ounces of gold right now. Um, when we acquired Florida Canyon, you know, the gold price when we started looking at it was roughly speaking about $2,200 an ounce. Our review was, you know, if that's enough cash flow, uh, from that operation and enough margin to pay for, you know, everything else that we needed to do, uh, to de-risk the other two, uh, development projects, that's great. Now, um, having just sold gold yesterday at $3,340, um, we have the, the ability to look at deploying some of that capital opportunistically to, to really look at pushing growth. These are all opportunities, you know, that we didn't have available to us even three, four months ago. So, uh, we're in a great spot. And, uh, you know, I'll echo John's comments. You know, heap leach deposits are great. They have a lot of torque when they work well. Uh, really highly leveraged to, uh, to the gold price environment, especially now.
Fantastic. Okay, great. Uh, yeah, thanks everybody. So, I'm just going to pull up a few slides from the, uh, from the report that I wrote. Just give me a second here.
So, uh, heap leaching is a processing method, if you're not sure, for extracting metals from low-grade ores that cannot be economically processed using conventional methods like milling. The process involves stacking run-of-mine or crushed ore onto large heaps on impermeable pads and followed by applying a leaching solution through drip emitters or sprinklers, uh, for weeks, months, or years. As the solution percolates from the top of the heap to the base, it dissolves the desired metals, which are then recovered, uh, from the metal-laden liquid, known as the pregnant leach solution. The solution is then passed through tanks containing activated carbon, which absorbs the metals, and where the loaded carbon can be stripped later. The metals are then recovered by electrowinning and smelted and put into gold bars or buttons. Alternatively, uh, the gold and silver could be recovered using the Merrill-Crowe process. And this process removes oxygen from the pregnant solution, adds zinc dust, causes the metals to precipitate, and allows them to be refined later. And typically, you'll use a Merrill-Crowe when the silver content of the mineralization is is high.
And I just got some, some good pictures, um, from Eldorado's heap leach mine, um, which you can see, uh, in detail and verify on their website. Heap leach is often favored for its lower capital and operating costs, simplicity, and suitability for low-grade, typically oxidized, near-surface ores. It uses less water and energy versus milling operations, enhancing sustainability in areas to remote areas, and is highly scalable, allowing for flexible production. While recovery rates are typically lower, 60 to 85% versus 85 to 95% for milling, the trade-off is acceptable for low-grade ores or in unstable regions, due to lowered financial risk from smaller initial investments and easier site closure. They play an important role in producers' production profiles globally. For example, you know, Kinross operates three heap leach mines in the US, and it accounted for 32% of their 2023 production. And in many cases, uh, these projects have been the first producing asset and catalyst, allowing junior single-asset producers to grow. A good example is Orla Mining. So, Orla evolved from a developer to a single-asset producer to a multiple-asset producer, all stemming from the successful construction and operating of the low initial CAPEX Camino project in Mexico. And in the lower right table, uh, you can see some production data that I've gathered from some North American listed producers to give you an idea of the production, uh, quantum, the grade, and the ASIC of these types of of deposits. So, you can see the production, um, for pure heap leach projects, grades around half a gram per ton, and the ASIC averages around $1,350 an ounce.
So, heap leaching success depends on a bunch of factors, such as ore oxidation, permeability, grade, recovery, leach times. Oxide ores are ideal for heap leaching, offering high recovery rates. Sulfide ores can require costly pre-treatment. Saprolites and laterites, weathered tropical ores, are great candidates as well, but typically require cement agglomeration due to the clay content. Clay-rich deposits can be challenging due to poor permeability, but you can get over that with with agglomeration. So, what is agglomeration? Basically, mixing that, uh, that ore with spent, uh, and turning finer particles into larger, stable aggregates, and that enhances the solution flow through the pad. And you can also overcome that, uh, by mixing clay-rich zones, um, with less clay if you have those.
Gold grades as low as 0.2 to 0.3 grams per ton can be economical across different throughputs, and cutoff grades of heap leach mines can reach as low as 0.07 grams per ton for run-of-mine heap leach operations. The recoveries, like I said, usually range between 60 to 85%, and that's lower than what you'd see with a mill, which is, I would say, between 85 to 95%. Uh, and unlike milling, where recovery is immediate, uh, heap leaching recovery does have a lag, and it, there's some delayed cash flow there. Many parameters can impact, impact the, uh, recovery rates, such as the coarseness of the gold particles, whether the gold is exposed, um, or as free particles or on rims, and, uh, you know, what's the, what's the efficiency, uh, of solution flow through the fractures and the heap once it's stacked.
There are different lab tests that you can do to look at recoveries. Um, the timing of recoveries, what other characteristics. So, cyanide shake assays, bottle roll tests, column leach tests. If I touch on column testing, um, you know, you put mineralized material in a vertical column. It's typically a couple of meters tall, and you apply a leaching solution at the top, and that percolates through the column, and you can get a lot of, really good data that's going to help you simulate what it's going to look like, uh, when you build the mine. So, you can get, uh, factors such as the leachability of the metal, the recovery rates, the leach kinetics, so the rate at which the gold dissolves, the reagent efficiency, how much cyanide is being consumed, and, and stability, so how much compaction you're kind of getting when you apply this solution. If you get too much compaction, you can start to form channels, uh, through the heap leach, and then that solution is not kind of flowing nicely through the heap, and you would potentially get lower recovery if that happened.
So, these are just some charts, um, that, uh, that are out of the report. And so, we went through a bunch of technical reports and charted up milling and heap leach, uh, data from those technical reports, and we have inflation-adjusted them to the end of 2024, based on the, the date of the tech report. And so, what you'll see is, uh, the initial and expansion CAPEX for heap leach projects is, is much lower than milling operations at the same size. So, for example, a 30,000-ton per day milling operation might cost around $920 million US, while a heap leach operation of the same scale on tons per day basis might be $225 million. So, it's almost a $700 million delta in CAPEX.
Um, if you look at it in terms of the life of mine payable metal value, uh, it's still also less capital intensive. Why is that? Uh, it's mainly, you know, you don't need the energy-intensive, high CAPEX mill. There's no liquid-solid separation, and there's no tailings, uh, disposal at heap leach mines. On sustaining costs, uh, heap leach generally requires lower sustaining CAPEX than milling. However, when you look at it against the life of mine payable metal value, can sometimes be more expensive. For open pit milling operations, variability comes from factors like ore hardness or tailings dam phasing. For heap leach, the sustaining CAPEX, a lot of it's going to be for expanding the leach pads. And it can actually be quite lumpy as you expand the pad, uh, every so often, to increase the capacity and be able to stack more, more tons.
Unit operating cost. That's where heap leach really shines. So, across scales, doesn't matter if it's 20,000 tons per day or 80,000 tons per day, you can see that the operating costs stay low, somewhere, you know, generally between $10 to $15 per ton processed. And that's a stark contrast, uh, to milling. And so, this cost advantage even holds when you apply, when you look at it versus, uh, you know, life of mine payable metal value. And again, that comes back down to simplicity, low energy needs, uh, of heap leach.
And then at mining cost on a ton per ton, on a per ton process basis, heap leach is cheaper at lower throughputs. And this might, for, for on a per ton mine basis, it's, it's kind of mixed. On a per ton process basis, you can see that it's lower, but this could be just a result of the sampled projects that I have. The average strip ratio of the heap leach operations in the study, uh, that were lower than 20,000 tons per day had a strip of 2:1, while the milling operations had a strip of 5.5:1. And then you can see, uh, on the processing OPEX versus tons per day. This is really where, uh, heap leach shines. At 20,000 tons per day, you know, heap leaching costs might average $3.87 per ton. And that's, uh, a lot lower than, you know, the average milling rate at, at $9.92 cents, uh, per ton.
So, if you're looking at, when you're looking at projects, these are some things to kind of think about during due diligence. So, if we look at, you know, gold particles, are the, is the gold free exposed? Is it on minor rims, in fractures? Is it encapsulated in sulfides like pyrite or arsenopyrite? If it's free, if it's on rim, or it's in fractures, it should easily dissolve in cyanide. But if it's encapsulated, you know, you might need processes like ultra-fine grinding or pressure oxidation. And also look at, you know, the proportion of fine versus coarse gold. Fine, finer particles are going to dissolve a lot faster.
Things that can impact recoveries. High copper can cause issues. You can form cyanide, stable cyanide complexes, and that reduces the cyanide available to leach gold. That can lower your recoveries. That can also be mitigated with what's called a SART plant. High clay content can be an issue, but that can be overcome, like I said earlier, with agglomeration or a good blending strategy with low-clay ore. Carbonaceous material is also, uh, can be an issue. So, it absorbs gold cyanide complexes, preventing recovery. What you can do is you can domain those zones, uh, out of your metallurgical model to keep this material off the leach pad. And, and so I've got just a cross-section from, from Liberty, and you can see they've domained some areas in the deposit that have higher carbonaceous material, and they've applied a 0.001% recovery and excluded any kind of ounces or mineralization in those zones. So, they've done a fantastic job at de-risking that aspect of the project and making sure that that material doesn't end up, uh, on the pad.
The other thing that I'll mention, you know, it's really important to know, uh, the, the different domains. So, your oxide, your transitional, and your sulfide domains. Each one of those is going to have, you know, different recoveries, uh, different recovery curves, uh, on on column tests in the real world. And so, these things can be separated out based in your model, based, uh, on visual core logging. You can use cyanide shake assays and look at the ratio between the cyanide shake assay value and the fire assay. And if you have high ratios, you know, that's a good sign that you have leachable oxide material. If you kind of have, let's say, 0.3 to 0.7 ratios or less, or sorry, in that range, maybe it's transitional. And if you have less than 0.3, maybe you, you know, that could indicate, uh, fresh rock or maybe you have some preg-robbing carbon.
So, the other things you want to look at, you know, have representative samples been taken from all these key domains and subdomains of the deposit? Are they spread out spatially? Do they represent, kind of, the different, you know, grades that they are going to exist in the mine plan? Oxidation state, mineralogy? Were tests conducted on blended samples to simulate, you know, the ore feed during mining? There's lots of different things, uh, to look at.
The other thing I'll, I'll mention, you know, where do the recovery rates plateau, uh, in those column leach tests, and is that going to be economically viable? And how long does it take to reach that that plateau? You know, faster recovery means quicker turnover of the heap leach pad, boosting throughput. If it's slow, you know, you could face bottlenecks, uh, delayed cash flow, and, uh, increased working capital needs.
And so, this is just a slide of, of some useful links if you're interested in learning more. I pulled a lot of data from, uh, Cassidy Associates. They've got a lot of good papers on their website. Helio Resources, uh, they operate two heap leach mines. They just put out a great series on Twitter with videos of how, you know, the heap leach process works. 911 Metallurgist is a good site to learn things from. And if you're interested, uh, you know, we write a lot of research. We write thematic pieces, including this one that I'm talking about today, heap leach. But we've done stuff on West Africa, permitting timelines, we write research on companies, site visits, so you can always go check that out and and sign up to receive, uh, that research.
Well done. I tried to, yeah, I tried to keep it, tried to keep it to five, but it's probably around eight. But, so I've just highlighted some key ideas and points, uh, from the January report that I wrote, and just, you know, curious what points resonate most with your experience, and what unique strengths do you guys believe, uh, your projects have to offer? Whoever wants to start can go, go for it.
I mean, I think one of the key things you honed in on is, is ultimately the economics that are driven by a heap leach operation. I mean, you know, one of the key metrics that a lot of, you know, institutional investors and and corporates and others will look at is, you know, what's the NPV to CAPEX ratio? I mean, that's a, a key, key ratio. So, every dollar I'm putting into the ground, how much NPV is that driving? And a lot of those graphs that you just highlighted there ultimately show that heap leach projects are much lower CAPEX. I think you said they're kind of, you know, a fifth or a quarter of the CAPEX for a similar size project, heap leach versus a milling operation. So, you know, when you're spending much lower capital, obviously that drives much higher returns for, uh, for shareholders. So, capital intensity, I think, is one of the things that really kind of differentiates, uh, heap leach projects from, from milling operations. And if you have the appropriate material, then it makes a lot of sense to ultimately push forward with a heap leach operation, given both the capital advantages as well as, as you highlighted, the operational, you know, advantages and, and, and the lower cost from an operating perspective as well. So, those two key, I think I'd say those are two key elements to a heap leach project, and, you know, that's what ultimately drives the returns at our project. If you look at $2,850 gold, you know, we've got an $890 million after-tax NPV, 125% IRR, and less than a one-year payback. And the big driver for that is lower CAPEX, lower OPEX. So, um, yeah, that'd be my comment.
Oh, John, you're on mute.
One other thing that attracts, that attracts us to this whole heap leach game is, is simplicity. Um, you know, these oxide deposits, and some people ask me, what's an oxide? Well, oxide is simply the near-surface expression of a sulfide deposit that's been oxidized at surface. So, these things are at surface. So, generally, they're very amenable to easy open pitting. So, this is a simple, near-surface, open pit mine, generally, which is a very well, clearly, well-understood. We know how to drill, blast, load, and haul, and then you have a very simple metals extraction process where you simply lay down an impermeable layer, you stack the material on top of it, whether it's crushed or run-of-mine, dumped out of trucks, you irrigate it with a, with a solution, the solution dissolves the gold, and you simply pull the gold out of the solution and then recirculate that solution to keep going. At the end of the mine life, um, you simply cover the heap and, and, and, um, basically the mine is then complete. You don't have, as you mentioned, no tailings facilities, no water consumption, no high energy consumption.
They are very simple from a sort of technical straightforward point of view. There is complexity in in understanding the detail, but at a high level, these are very simple, very efficient, very cheap operating, operating mines. And, and success typically comes from your ability to mine efficiently at a, at a good cost base because, because the overall, the overall largest component of the operating cost per ton in a heap leach operation is generally the mining cost. And so, if you're an efficient miner, these mines, build good open pit operators, um, who, who understand how to move dirt cheaply, who understand their fleets, understand the loading efficiencies, and, and as a result of that, are able to mine down and profitably grades that on the face of it sort of look almost look impossible. So, that, that is very attractive, I think.
Yeah. Um, I'll echo some of the, the comments that both Luke and John said, and, and Stephen, to your point, you know, we've already discussed the, uh, the CAPEX, upfront CAPEX and OPEX benefits of, of heap leaching versus milling. Obviously, that, that resonates with us, uh, specifically when it comes to Del Mar. As our shareholders will will recall, we looked at Del Mar both as a heap leach and a, and a basically a milling scenario. Concluded pretty quickly that there's still a mill to be built there, someday, to treat some of that, that sulfide material. But ultimately, heap leaching was the way, the, preferred way to go. I think, uh, for us, another big driving piece was, uh, reducing permitting complexity when it comes to heap leaching versus milling for the reasons that John just mentioned. You know, less water, um, uh, no need to put together or build a tailings facility. All of these things really add up when it comes to permitting success or permitting viability for us. That was a big one. Um, you know, with permitting being, being a big deal. Uh, and I think the other piece too, that you touched on in, in the force of your presentation, Steve, which, which really resonated, uh, for us at all of the assets that we have, is, is that ability to, to source, uh, different material from, uh, different mining fronts. For example, Del Mar's got its two major ore bodies, uh, it's four low-grade, uh, stockpiles that were put there by Kinross back in the day. We've got backfills. So, we've got that, that ability to, to put together blending strategies, which people will see in the upcoming feasibility study, which we'll put out sometime in the second half of, of this year. That gives you that operating, sort of flexibility. So, you can blend high clay content ore with low clay content, or for example, that's, uh, you know, optionality is a miner's best friend, ultimately, when it comes to, when it comes to mining. And we saw some of those same, uh, qualities, by the way, at Florida Canyon.
Steve, if I could perhaps add one, one sort of final comment to, you know, you mentioned the operating cost of these sort of leach open pit leach operations, $10 to $15. You know, our PFS, we had ourselves at $9.11 cents, I think, a ton, but $10, $10 is probably a good number. And what I like to tell people is today, um, you know, um, a gram of gold is worth about a hundred bucks. Um, so that means 0.1 of a gram recovered gives you $10. If your operating cost is $10 a ton, that means 0.1 gram recovered pays all my operating costs. So, that is the definition of a break-even cutoff grade, 0.1 recovered. The recoveries, as you rightly say, are somewhere between 60 and, and, and 80. So, 0.1 is at the low end. So, 60% recovery at 0.1 gives you a head grade of about 0.17. So, 0.17 grams is your break-even cutoff grade. You know, and you can make, you can make a dollar. And if you've got lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of tons of 0.17 surrounding a higher grade zone at half a gram, one gram, that sort of has the, the gold in it that pays for the operation. All of that sort of halo of lower grade material is cream on the top and goes to reducing your strip ratio. So, less waste rock to move for a given ton of ore. And that's where you get the leverage of these things to gold price. So, you know, 0.17 break-even cutoff grade, that's a remarkable number that I think is, it's almost hard to believe. So, hence the illustration on the gold price.
Yeah, I think it, and I'll just add to that because it's a great point, and it's one of the things that we always have to kind of talk about and, and often educate investors on is that because of the low OPEX cost, because of the low CAPEX cost, you can drive that cutoff as John's highlighting down to that 0.17. What that then does is it brings your overall grade down. So, it's not necessarily that these projects are low-grade projects. It's just that they're highly economic at those lower grades because of the lower CAPEX and the lower OPEX. You know, when you look at a milling project, you'll typically use, you know, over the last few years, it's been a 0.5 gram cutoff is what the, you know, what, what, what what's typically been run. And obviously, at a 0.5 gram, that's going to increase your overall grade for the, uh, resource. You know, that's now dropping to 0.4 and 0.3 in this environment because obviously we're at $3,300 gold. So, it's more economic to put some of that, you know, uh, material through a mill. But heap leach projects, you're looking at, as John highlighted, you know, 0.17 was the number, but you, you go all the way down to 0.1 in a number of instances, and those are still very profitable mines, whereas for a milling scenario, you probably need to use a 0.5 gram cutoff to cover that OPEX and additional CAPEX cost. So, it's a great point that John makes, and just to follow on that, for a milling scenario, you're looking at a much higher cutoff. So, that's pretty interesting. And it kind of relates to the second question I wanted to ask, and, you know, what, what do investors have a hard time understanding about, you know, heap leach? And is it just, you know, they see the grade of drill results and they're, this, you know, these aren't that great without understanding, you know, the cost to mine them? Is it understanding the met? Like, what do you think is kind of the biggest challenge in, you know, conveying the opportunity, the value, uh, to investors on heap leach?
Yeah, I think, I think from a, from a, you know, explaining to shareholders perspective, I think one of the, one of the things that, you know, we spend a lot of time doing, uh, explaining, and, and, and it's important, is, is knowing the metallurgy of, of, of your oxide profile, um, and, and, and doing enough of that work, uh, to, to justify moving from, you know, PEA to PFS to, to FS and, and beyond. Um, you know, it's not as simple as, you know, a couple of column leach tests that, that you can blank it over a deposit and call it, you know, a uniform extraction. So, you know, these deposits, they live and they die, um, in the oxide profile, and specifically within that mixed oxide, sort of what's historically called transitional material, we call it mixed oxide. Um, understanding that material is, is really key because that's where things can go sideways very quickly. So, that's where, you know, an abundance of sampling, um, you know, which is, you know, a lot of column leach test work done on that, uh, a lot of bottle rolls, correlating those bottle rolls, a lot of sample media needs to be taken in those zones, particularly, and that's, that's, uh, that's something that we spend a lot of time telling, telling people who are looking at us for sure.
Steve, I, I also think, um, you know, one, one of the things that perhaps is, is the least attractive, if you like, is these are not grade plays. I think the market, you know, looks for high-grade intercepts and looks for, you know, double-digit grams per ton and gets very excited about those sorts of intercepts, and that's for very good reason. This type of, of gold mine isn't that kind of game, and you can't really judge it with that same mindset. In fact, you shouldn't really be looking at grade when it comes to these types of deposits. You really need to focus on margin. And that's, that's a bit harder because grade is a single number up front. Everyone goes, "Yeah, okay. I could see that. It's easy. It's accessible. It looks great. I'm going to buy in." Margin takes a little more time and a little more understanding. But once you start to get an eye in for for what makes sense from a revenue over costs, and then life and ease of permitting and operational simplicity, typically environmental simplicity as well, um, you know, these things really start to shine. Um, but let's face it, they're boring. They're boring assets. They just sit in the background, they churn away, and, and they're relatively straightforward to run, assuming, as George very correctly says, you've got to understand the met. That's probably the biggest, I think, opportunity perhaps in the industry is to, is to really understand metallurgical process, leaching, leach kinetics, what's going on in your different ore types, what do you really need to do to get that recovery at the end of the day? So, there is some technical complexity there, um, but, but I think overall, um, it's that understand the margin opportunity here. Low capital cost of entry, very nice long-life margin against rising gold prices. I think that's where the market, I think, has opportunity.
Yeah, I think I'd add to that, and it's a great point that both John and and George are making. The other thing is, as we've highlighted, you know, these projects are simple open pit mines, and with that, typically you've got very low strip ratios. So, if you look at our project, for example, it's 2.7 to one, and, and I guess John and George would kind of be, you know, one to three or again, you guys can jump in, but, you know, typically you're very low strip ratio. So, that is a critical element as well. You know, one of the things we always say to investors is, if a company is not highlighting in their presentation what their strip ratio is, you better ask. You'll even go into some of the, you know, full PFS tech reports, and there'll only be one mention of the fact that it's 10 or 20 to one strip ratio on the project. So, again, from an economic perspective, you know, if you've only got to move two, two tons of waste for every ton of ore, that is a huge advantage over having to move 10 or 20 tons of waste for every ton of ore. And that again, back to the OPEX piece, that is generally one of the key elements that drives the economics. And, and that, those are all crucial elements, but I think John's point is great. You know, the flashy high-grade result that comes out may be, you know, a way of mining the market, but when you dive into it and find out, well, to actually get that, it's 500 meters below surface and it's going to cost a billion dollars to build a shaft and, and, you know, the, you know, the economics of these heap leach projects, again, simple, low material to move, uh, is what, you know, really differentiates them.
So, so, so going to the opposite spectrum now, you know, uh, you know, for people that maybe know more about, uh, about the industry, or the project, you know, there's always, you know, people always have one thing to say about why a project won't work. You know, it's, it's refractory, or, uh, the mine's never going to be built there, for example. So, what are one to two concerns maybe that you guys have heard, um, about your projects that you don't think, um, you know, you face skepticism over, but you don't think it's an issue, and how have you demonstrated that it's not an issue to kind of, you know, change, change the view?
Yeah, I think, I think again, sort of talking about, you know, aside from the production we have at Florida Canyon, and talking about Del Mar for a second again, um, the question that we get a lot is, you know, what do silver recoveries look like, uh, in the context of the heap leach? Um, you know, Del Mar has historically been a, you know, this massive gold-silver district, and depending where, where the silver and gold prices were over the course of, you know, 150 years, it was either a predominantly silver-producing, uh, camp, if you will, with a gold byproduct, or the reverse, gold with a silver byproduct. And so, knowing, of course, that silver is an important component at Del Mar, and it's, you know, 100 million ounces of silver out there, you know, what becomes very important from us from a, a revenue perspective is, um, silver recovery in the heap. We've spent a lot of time on that. So, now, silver, as we all know, doesn't recover as well as gold does. But maximizing silver returns for us is a really big deal, because it's a big revenue generator for us. But explaining that and explaining it over and over again, hey, you know, how, how can we, how can we get 40, 45% leach recoveries, uh, of silver is something we spend a lot of time on because it generates a lot of revenue. But it's, it's a question that comes up.
I, you know, I think for us, Stephen, there's, you know, people say, well, can, you know, can you really recover it? Do you, do you have the recovery modeled properly? Do you understand the ore well enough to know that I can get 60, 70% recovery? And, um, you know, I think what we say to people is, well, and George mentioned this earlier, this, when you use the term oxide, it's a pretty, pretty loose term. It does actually have a technical definition. And when the way we talk about what's oxide gold is, um, we do a cyanide solubility test, which is basically take a sample, um, you've analyzed gold by fire assay, that's the total amount of gold in the rock. If you take that same piece of rock and you, you, you add, uh, cyanide solution and you mix it up, and then you test how much gold comes out, you extract some percentage of the total gold, um, and, uh, a high percentage, above typically 60% of, of cyanide soluble total, would be called oxide, as in cyanide soluble gold. And then you have lesser and lesser amounts, understanding the distribution of that in space. So, my oxides tend to be near surface, that sort of transitional period where it's in, in the middle, where it's sort of semi-soluble to not very soluble. Understanding that distribution in space and allowing you to model recoveries and ore types in space is very, very important, and I think distinguishes, you know, the, the serious leachers who really want to understand, um, where the ore is, how do I treat it, versus individuals that take one or two bulk samples and say it's all of this type. I think that subtlety is really important.
A, and last comment, you mentioned, uh, you illustrated, um, these carbonation shells. Some of these, particularly Carlin-type deposits, have have shell horizons in them, have carbon, and that carbon is a, a problem in the, if it gets onto the heap, because the carbon absorbs, um, the, the solution and absorbs gold. So, modeling those in space and understanding what, what is ore and what is waste, what's good ore and what's worse ore. I think that whole modeling piece is, is a critical, uh, technical requirement and, and, um, not well understood, I think, by the market. Um, so I think if you're looking at a deposit and they're telling you it's all one ore type and we've got one sample and the recovery is 68%, um, that perhaps is, is, is less trustworthy than someone that's done, okay, there are 18 ore types and we've got a recovery equation by ore type and they're distributed in space in this way. That resolution makes a difference.
Yeah. So, I, I think we've talked about grade. I mean, that's something we always need to address, but again, I think we've, we've, we've highlighted that, you know, these projects, because of the CAPEX, OPEX, are very, very profitable, and if you look at any of our, our PEAs or PFSs that have been put out, those are all driven by the grades of the project. So, that's something, um, that we need to address. Recoveries. I think John and, and George have just kind of touched on that, so I won't, um, reiterate that point, but, you know, for us specifically, you know, we, we've got tropical saprolite. It leaches incredibly well. You know, we're getting low 90% recoveries in our study. We use 85 for the oxide transitional material. So, but continuing to explain the recovery piece is important. Uh, and then for us specifically in Ghana, rain would be something that we need to educate, educate investors on. So, you know, there is higher rainfall in, uh, in the southwest part of Ghana. That being said, there's been lots of other heap leach operations in Ghana, including Tarkwa, that have similar rainfall levels. If you then look at other projects, you know, globally, um, you know,
Brazil, for example, with Londinine and Chapata there. Uh, AngloGold, I mean, again, we've looked at a number of other projects with similar rainfall, but that always becomes an education process. And part of that is, you know, look at these other heap leach operations that they've, that that we've had in Ghana. Most of them got mined out years ago because, again, typically you go after that material first because it sits at surface. And given Ghana is such a mature mining jurisdiction, most of that material was, you know, mined out years ago.
But then looking at other projects globally that have similar, uh, or more rainfall, you know, Shuendo would be one that probably a lot of people know that Pan-American, um, has, you know, similar rainfalls there. He's a very successful heap leach operation. So, rain would be for us, specifically, um, something that we have to, uh, educate investors on.
Great. Um, so I'll ask one more question. Um, so with gold, gold surpassing $3,200 an ounce, uh, forecast prices are climbing, you know, what can you guys do, um, George, and even at your development projects, uh, to reduce costs and boost margins? Like, what, what type of trade-offs are you guys looking at at the mine? And, you know, for your, your studies, is there, is there anything out, you know, are there any trade-offs that you're doing right now, or are you still going to assume whatever $2,000 gold price, uh, in your, in your future studies?
Yeah. Um, hopefully not $2,000 gold price for future studies. Um, yeah, so I, one of the things that we, that really struck us hard when we were doing due diligence on Florida Canyon was how many, uh, how many elements of that mine, especially at higher gold prices, are available to us to tweak. And, um, you know, it's, it's the kind of the cumulative effect of these optimizations that we're looking at now. No, no, uh, single one of these is going to be the big driver. It's going to be one or two or three of these things.
Specifically with respect to, you know, the way we're looking at things now, and, and the big turnaround at Florida Canyon has been the, the transition to, um, from crushed ore leaching to run-of-mine leaching. Now, that's what's really driven record years of production in the last two years at Florida Canyon. And this is a whole other topic, by the way, but we can talk about crushed ore heat bleaching versus run-of-mine heat bleaching. They, they're, they're both very different. They both have different cost profiles, different implications. There's lots of trade-offs to do in, in terms of, you know, what you lose in terms of recovery by not crushing versus the revenue that you're generating by bypassing that crusher to in the first place. So, that's one of the things that we're looking at now. Um, and there's, there's, there's a lot that goes into that and, and that, you know, comes down to understanding geometry. In other words, what's the geological reason that that that prevails that that makes that run-of-ore mine, run-of-ore mine versus crushed ore? Um, and I can speak about ore because it's in the context of a, of a mining operation, but there's a real opportunity there for us to be gained. And, you know, uh, you know, John, maybe you can jump into this, but, you know, the mine that's just kind of up the road from Florida Canyon, Marigold, which is where you spent a lot of time, I mean, that's gone to 100% run-of-mine, uh, leaching. And, uh, wow, that's, that's a, that's a tremendous benefit to that operation, specifically. So that's just one of the, the, the optimizations that we're looking at now. At higher gold prices, obviously, makes, makes a ton of sense to look at.
So, in, so, in terms of, um, of Liberty and perhaps just to answer George's question, the run-of-mine, the types of deposits that are, that are suitable for run-of-mine are deposits where when you do, um, a series of recovery tests at different grain sizes, so from a fine crush to a light crush to, to a little crush. So you would go from a pulp at 75 microns to half an inch to two inches to six inches, and you do test work on those grain sizes, you tend to see a, a flat recovery curve. So that, all of those different grain sizes, you tend to get the same amount of recovery. And what that means is the gold in that rock is generally very fine and it's distributed over fracture surfaces in the rock. So it doesn't really matter what, how, what the size of the lump is, the solutions can get into the cracks and the microfractures and access the gold. Um, there are deposits, of course, that benefit by crushing because it exposes, it exposes more surface and then obviously creates a better opportunity. Run-of-mine, um, saves you anywhere between three and five bucks a ton not having to crush an agglomerate. So I think, you know, that's, that's a huge, and it's an innate characteristic of the mineral and, and, and, um, where it's available, it's a fantastic opportunity. And Black Pine has one of those characteristics where it's a very flat crush recovery curve.
In terms of what we're doing with the upcoming gold price, we're going to, we're looking very seriously as we move into feasibility at the end of this year to increasing our production rate throughput from 50,000 tons a day to 65,000 tons a day. And what we're really looking now is the definition of ore and waste becomes an absolutely critical part of your operating strategy. Um, and that goes straight to stockpile because I've got a fixed capacity in my leach. I could take so many tons a day, but I'm mining more material that I can put on the pad. So now I have to stockpile it. And of course, I have to rehandle it off my stockpile and that's another dollar, dollar 10 a ton. And so the economics of what becomes ore and what becomes direct feed to the heap and what becomes stockpile and subsequent feed to the heap, that is the key game, I think, today. And, and, and as that gold price rises and rises and rises, what happens is the amount of true waste rock that you have to move gets less and less and less and less and less, and that strip ratio goes lower and lower and lower. And that is a huge positive on all of the economics surrounding these things. So that game, if you like, or that optimization is a fundamental part of, of, of what we will be doing going forward into feasibility.
Yeah. Um, so I mean, to avoid kind of being repetitive, I think John kind of outlined a lot of the trade-off work that's critical to be doing in a, in a higher gold price environment. You know, what, what, what cut-off should we ultimately be using in this gold environment? You know, waste, all those things. So, um, maybe I'll just change gears and, and I think probably Liberty, Integra are also focused on this, but, you know, in this gold environment, we're actually starting to see the market rewarding companies for exploration again. And one of the key, you know, kind of drivers for us on that front was at the end of January, we put out some drill results, you know, good results, you know, 1.85 grams over 68 meters from surface with some nice high grade and that sitting in the oxide transitional material. And, you know, for the first time probably in two or three years, we saw the stock actually move up kind of 10, 15% on the day on the back of that. So, you know, we then raised $15 million. So, you know, in this environment where the market has started to reward us, and I think other companies for exploration, we're, you know, starting to aggressively drill again. And so we expanded our drill program to 35,000 meters. So, you know, that, that, I guess, you know, moving slightly away from the, you know, the, the specific study component of the heap leach, I think exploration again is something that all of us can create value with in this price environment. Companies seem to be getting rewarded. So, um, so that's something that we're also focused on is, is, is exploration.
Fantastic. And maybe if I can add on to John what you were saying there, you know, finding what's going to be that cut-off grade. So I'm assuming that you guys are going to be doing a lot of test work around that potential, you know, uh, cut-off grade like you want to make.
Yeah, we just, um, we, I think the, the lowest grade sample we had, we had column test work on was 0.12, and we just kicked, we're just about to kick off a bunch of columns going down to 0.06, 0.07. We're pretty confident that the, that we, we can predict the, the grade down, the recoveries down to those grades, but obviously we need to confirm that. So, um, we'll have those results sort of middle part of the year.
Okay, great. Uh, all right, I'm just going to go through, we, we've had some questions come in. Um, so I'll go through and, and, uh, whoever wants to answer can answer. But there's a question here on, on tailings processing. Um, and I know that there are some companies, I believe, that are, you know, heap leaching tailings. Go Gold, for example, in Mexico. Uh, can you talk about maybe what might be different, um, for, for, uh, leaching tailings versus, um, you know, just regular, um, open pit mine?
I have to admit, I don't have a lot of experience with, uh, tailings leaching.
Okay. I'm assuming that it'd be a lot more, uh, you mean, it'd be similar to having to deal with, you know, a lot of clay. I'm assuming you'd have to agglomerate and I don't know, John.
Yeah. I mean, I think I think my, I'm, I'm sort of hesitant because I think the answer to, to treating tailings is so specific to a given set of tailings and the metallurgical, the grain size of the tailings, how long it's been in the ground, how oxidized it is, um, how are you going to move it? Are you going to dig it up? Are you going to hydraulically mine it? Is it in a pulp already? I mean, I think it's, it's very difficult to sort of generally apply other than it's absolutely doable. Um, there's no reason why you can't mine tailings and re-leach tailings, albeit in a heap, so statically on a bit of plastic on the ground. Or probably more likely, you mine it hydraulically, uh, and you put it into a mill. You re-grind it so you freshen up the grains of that in the individual grains. And at that point, then you put it through a standard, um, carbon and leach circuit, a typical, you know, milled gold ore circuit. Um, that's probably a better route. Um, the disadvantage of of taking tails and stacking them on a heap is that you start to get into heap stability issues. M, um, and, you know, we would be remiss of perhaps not pointing out last year, we had a couple of significant failures of heaps, um, crushed heaps in this case, particularly fine crushed heaps, um, and, and controlling heap stability when you have a very, very fine crush can be quite difficult. It requires good operating practice and, across, very good design. Um, and so, um, you know, it's to be, to be borne in mind when you're looking at potentially heap leaching very, very fine milled material. Um, probably better off in a re-mill, re-leach circuit.
Yeah, I think Steve, as well, I think that the thing that comes up for me on that topic of of processing material that's already been handled is, is predicting grade and grade distribution within within a tailings facility, um, that's not controlled by geology, right? Um, you know, there's, you know, sampling it. How do you sample it? How do you know what, what, what the actual grade is? There's a lot of grade variability within tailings. So, I, I would see that as being, um, as a big, uh, question mark around that topic. And, and to John's point, I mean, there, there are, there are several operations where where that's done successfully, but, uh, not, not without its challenges.
Uh, George, you, you'll be aware. Um, you, you guys have drilled out the, the backfill in your Delmar pit. Um, we're drilling out, um, old waste dumps from the previous mine, the Pegasus mine in the '90s at Black Pine. These dumps are at a grade of 2.25. So that's ore today. Um, but to be able to predict grade inside backfill and grade inside a waste dump is no trivial matter because there's no geological control. It's, it's a physical control from material that's stacked and that that can be, um, can be, um, how can I put it? Uh, not for the faint of heart, shall I say?
Yes, I think correct. Have there been any, you know, big changes in the process of heap leaching over the last 40 to 50 years, or is it just, uh, steady as she goes? Has there been anything significantly changed in mining in the last 40 to 50 years? I don't know. Yeah. What was the last major, the last major change in mining was maybe autonomous haulage, but that's not, I mean, it's a sort of a major change. SX-EW probably in the '60s, that was a big change. I don't think so.
Um, I think I think for us, and we're doing some, you know, as we go into feasibility, we've got to think about the design of our, the ADR plant. And for those who don't know what that is, that's the plant that receives the solution from the heap and then extracts the gold from that solution and then ends processing that gold as ore. That's absorption, desorption, recovery. That's ADR. Um, and, and you have carbon, you use carbon in that process to extract the gold from the pregnant solution. Um, you can have cascading columns or you can have a vertical column. Vertical columns are relatively new. They're not that common. They seem to offer some efficiency in footprint and possibly efficiency in recovery. So, so that's a sort of a tweak, if you like, on on the leaching process in terms of optimizing extraction potential. But other than that, these, um, it's pretty commercially proven old school stuff, Steve.
Okay. One, one more question. Uh, for each of these, each of your projects, do you think it, it's possible to move from a heap leach to a conventional mill in the future? Uh, whoever wants to start on that.
Oh boy. Uh, do we know something about that Delmar? Um, Delmar, we originally looked at as, you know, a heap leach as, as the kickoff and then kind of slowly over time migrating to a milling situation. And again, not for the faint of heart, not for the least of which reason is the capital required to, to do that, right? And so demonstrating for us, demonstrating that capital, uh, requirement for us was, was daunting, daunting for us and our shareholders, which is why we, we chose to stick to heap leaching as, as kind of the narrative for Delmar. Not to say that at some point in the future, Delmar, for example, Florida Canyon is, is very much the same because there's a large component of sulfide that underpins that oxide. Um, and actually Nevada North, same, same. Um, but, you know, starting with a heap leach has has a ton of advantages. Um, someday on all three of our assets, there will be a mill, though somebody will be milling that, that material. Especially now that we're looking at a higher gold price environment, it would make sense to do that, but just the scale of doing that is completely different from, again, as we talked about originally, you know, the capital requirements of heap leaching and milling are, are completely different.
Uh, yeah, sure, I can jump in. So, um, you know, on our project, we have very thick zones of oxidized material. So again, that's where it makes a ton of sense for us to push forward with a, with a heap leach project, as well as the recoveries that we get in this tropical saprolite are, are very high. So from a column test perspective, we're kind of low 90s. From a study perspective, we use 85%. So often the rule of thumb between, you know, milling and heap leach is if you have more than a 15% spread between the recoveries that you're getting, uh, from the, um, from a milling scenario compared to a heap leach, you know, you're better off going with a, uh, a heap leach operation because of all of the things we've discussed, the capex, the opex, and, and the overall size and scale that George has, has been highlighting as well. That being said, when you look at our project from an exploration perspective, and you look at the pits today that constrain our resource, they're only down to about 75 meters. So, back to that kind of open pit, simple heap leach is what we've outlined today. We do have true district scale exploration. So continuing to target the higher grade sulfide material that is sitting below those, um, is something that we're focused on with this 35,000 meters and additional drilling in the future. As that resource starts to grow, then logically down the road, it would make sense for us to look at a milling scenario. But one of the ways we're looking at it is, you know, again, at a $2,850 gold price, you know, this project generates over a billion dollars, $1.2 billion of after-tax cash flow. You can use all of that cash flow from the heap leach operation to then in the future, call it five or six years from now, to go and build that mill and then expand the overall size of the operation. So yes, milling is in the, uh, uh, in the future for Entie. It's just when we look at the economics today, we're obviously focused on that heap leach with a milling scenario, uh, uh, down the road at some point.
So Steve, not, not to be too boring, pretty much identical answer for for Liberty's as the two answers we've just received. I mean, in our case, we've got a 350 meter thick column of well-oxidized material. At a PFS level, we got 17 years of operations without going anywhere near anything that looks like sulfides. Um, and I think, you know, um, in, in our drilling, when we hit sulfides, we stop. So we just haven't, um, exposed what's going on in terms of a sulfide core of this deposit. And, um, you know, I think I think as, as George says, um, there'll be, there's, there'll be a sulfide deposit stuck somewhere underneath Black Pine down the road. Um, we, we don't need it to get the mine up and running. Um, you know, the oxides pay for themselves handsomely. And the interesting thing about the oxides is, is you could think of them as a pre-strip for the subsequent open pit mine on the sulfides below. And in doing so, it, it sort of, it unloads the economics on the sulfides because you've already, it's become a free strip, if you want to think of it in that sense from a sulfide perspective. So now I've got this large open pit. I've got sulfides in the floor of my pit, and, and I've paid for all the stripping. So, so at that point, the economics of the, of the sulfide processing becomes quite different. So in, I, I think in, in Liberty and Black Pine's case, that's a conversation that would happen years five to eight. There'd be, there'd be cash flow, there'd be a deeper exploration program, and then we'd start playing some, you know, broader deposit-wide games around, well, how big can this thing go and where do you go? So, definitely on the menu, uh, sort of dessert rather than starters.
Got it. Got it. Okay, guys, it's been an hour. Uh, I want to thank you for your time and thank you for participating. I've learned a lot. I hope people listening, uh, you know, learned something today. And I just wanted to end it with, uh, you know, each of you guys going over, you know, what's one or two key catalysts, uh, you know, investors can look forward to, uh, this year and into early next year.
Yeah, maybe I'll start there. Um, so obviously with the combination of, of, uh, production from Florida Canyon and development and permitting at, at Delmar. So the two key things there are at Florida Canyon, demonstrating quarter after quarter, sort of an increasing balance sheet. You know, we've got a healthy balance sheet of over $50 million now. So, adding to that quarter over quarter and showing consistent, uh, performance from the mining operation and a growing cash balance. The second piece is de-risking Delmar. Um, so, we've just, we've just submitted a key document to the permitting regulators federally, and our expectation is, you know, the NEPA time clock for us will then start some point in the second half of this year, which is a two-year time frame for us. Again, there's a big de-risking element for, for, for that. So, look out for those two, uh, and news around that from our perspective.
So, so from Liberty's perspective, um, George and I are in a two-horse race here. We've, we've submitted exactly the same document. We're waiting for exactly the same, uh, the same sort of key permitting piece in pretty much the same time as he is. So, you know, early second half of the year, we expect to to get the notice of intent, which is what we're both waiting for. And that puts you 24 months from approval. So, you know, in a permitting sense, that'll be Black Pine off to the races. Uh, in an engineering sense, um, you can look to us starting, um, feasibility resource drilling, you know, in the next month. Um, and then feasibility resource published in the sort of latter part of the year, and then full feasibility engineering starting in Q4 this year. Um, so, you know, we're taking this thing seriously through development and staring at production down the road.
Yeah. So for us, um, uh, I think I've highlighted a couple times, we're obviously in the midst of a 35,000 meter drill program. So we will have lots of drill results out. We've released about 15,000 so far. So typically on a monthly basis, expect, um, drilling to come out. Um, last year, 2024, publishing our PEA was a big catalyst for the, uh, for the company, and we're in the process of taking the project from a PEA to a PFS. We're looking to commission that in the second half of this year and publish it in the first half of next year. So included in that is a lot of de-risking work. So, uh, resource conversion drilling, met work, hydrological work, geotech work, are all things that are getting, you know, completed at the moment and will be incorporated into that PFS, and we see that as a real catalyst for the company. As you de-risk a project from PEA to PFS to BFS and ultimately into construction and production, you typically get a re-rate from a market perspective. So, big catalyst for us, we think, is taking it from PEA to PFS will be a real re-rate for the company. But then layered on top of that, obviously, is we are going to continue to aggressively drill AC across the, uh, across the project and, uh, look to continue to make new discoveries and ultimately grow the overall size of the mineralized footprint.
Fantastic. Great. Thanks everybody for attending and enjoy the rest of your day. [Music]