Let me start by welcoming you all to the 2024 AGM. As always, we all really appr eciate the effort you've made to come down here today. I'm gonna move straight into slide two. I think it's fair to say we really have made a lot of progress since we sat in this room at the last AGM. Firstly, Navitas has done a great job on Sea Lion, increasing resources while decreasing costs, and all that means that the project has a materially lower breakeven and hence we say improved financability. Secondly, we've completed the transaction to monetize our Ombrina Mare arbitration award, and as a result, we have the strongest balance sheet we've had for some years. We've also completed the annulment hearing, and I'll talk a little bit more on that later.
Thirdly, we've renewed the board, and I'm delighted to welcome both Simon and Paul here today. We also saw almost 95% of our warrants taken up, and that, combined, with the Ombrina payment, as I say, sees us with the strongest balance sheet we've had for a number of years. What we'll do today is look at those things in turn. Let's just go over some of the highlights at Sea Lion on slide three. Navitas has published an updated independent expert report produced by Netherland, Sewell & Associates, Inc., and that report confirms we're talking about a field here with almost 800 million barrels of recoverable oil. As has been the case for several years, that will be developed in phases.
What we call the first phase of development, which is now based on real-world identified and available FPSOs, produces over 300 million barrels of oil at a plateau of around 55,000 barrels of oil a day. That has really quite a long production plateau of around eigh years, which is achieved by having two drilling campaigns. You know, the first of so me 11 wells, and then there's a second campaign of about 12 wells probably commencing three or four years after first oil. Costs are way down on the older Premier development scheme, and so we now have a breakeven, as you can see here, of around $25 per barrel. That obviously improves returns at lower oil prices, which is why we say the project has become more financeable.
Despite the lower production rate, the increase in resources and the lower costs all means the NPV10 of the project gross to the joint venture remains in excess of $4 billion at an oil price of $77 Brent on a post-FIG royalty pre-tax basis. That's a really clever bit of project design. Slide four sets out the highlights in the form of a table, and I'll leave that on the screen while I talk a little bit about where we are in the journey towards FID. The immediate job is the EIS, which is the environmental impact statement. In that regard, the Falkland Islands Government, who are our regulator, has recently announced a public consultation phase, which should run until early August with another month or so of time allowed after that for follow-up.
We have the FDP itself, which along with a number of appendices, is the main document governing the way in which the field will actually be developed. Getting that document approved is an iterative process that is really quite well advanced. Of course, there is the perennially thorny issue of the financing itself, and on that front, I can tell you that a bank has been appointed to advise on the financing. Now, I'll say now that because of confidentiality reasons, we can't disclose the name of that bank nor give any hints as to their identity, but we are delighted with their involvement. Now, at Rockhopper, we still believe the financing is most likely going to be done in the bond market as opposed to having traditional senior bank debt, and the main reason for that is the Argentine sovereignty claim.
Now, in terms of timing to FID, as many of you know, there is no real formal timetable. Obviously, we're really in the hands of Navitas as operator, and as always, we will update the market as we move through the process towards FID and sanction. As you can see, the project itself is really in very good shape. You can see here on slide five just a quick reminder of the key commercial terms with Navitas where we benefit from two loans. Now, as you all know, we're currently pre-FID, and so the bulk of our costs are covered by a loan from Navitas, which bears an interest rate of 8% and is repaid from Sea Lion cash flows.
Post-FID, at which point of course we will know the project is going ahead, we benefit from a 0% interest loan covering two-thirds of our equity costs, and that means costs not covered by the envisaged project financing. I should say that license fees and any Rockhopper-specific taxes are excluded from both of these loans. Now, of course, the Ombrina Mare situation has also seen very material positive progress. We've closed our transaction to monetize the award and to remind you that that has three payment tranches. The first tranche has been paid, and as a result, we currently have some $27 million on our balance sheet. We've also paid out the original litigation funder, and so we retain 100% of the remaining two tranches.
As it says here, the next tranche would be EUR 65 million should we successfully defend the annulment attempt. As previously disclosed, we will owe our lawyers in the region of EUR 4 million. The third and final tranche is a profit share, which is based on the actual recoveries made by the new funder. I would say I personally anticipate that being some way out in time. All of this is likely to be subject to tax, which is really a complex topic all of its own. Having done a lot of work in this area, we think the effective rate is likely to be between 10%-15%. You can see here that the total Rockhopper receipts, assuming we win annulment, are over EUR 80 million, ignoring the profit share.
If you include the cash we already have on our balance sheet and then make some allowances for tax and paying the legal fees, you can tell we could well end up with around $80 million on our balance sheet. We are hopeful that that will be sufficient to cover all of our required equity for Sea Lion under the Navitas commercial terms on the previous slide. We've also completed the annulment hearing, which was a full two-day hearing in Madrid in April of this year. Now, under ICSID rules, the proceedings are confidential between the parties, and so I'm not in a position to share the details, of the grounds on which Italy is seeking to have the award annulled. Plainly, there are absolutely no guarantees of success.
I can say that following that hearing, our legal advisors tell us they remain confident in the strength of our case. We are hopeful that the new panel will deliver their ruling on the annulment attempt by the end of this year. I probably should reiterate here, there is no formal timetable for us to find out the answer. I think slide seven is fairly self-explanatory. Of course, we made all these points public at the time we announced the monetization. We're obviously delighted with this transaction, and while the incoming funders should go on to make a very healthy return, we believe getting this deal over the line gives us a great chance of fully funding our share of Sea Lion equity requirements in a timely manner while maintaining a healthy slice of the upside.
The alternative, of course, would have been to stay in the award, and then we would have had what would, in our view, likely be a lengthy and expensive fight with Italy to get full recovery. Slide eight. I'm not gonna spend much time on this today, but I'll leave it in here for you to read in the future. Again, we made all these points at the time that we monetized the award. Moving to corporate matters. As said at the start, we're delighted to welcome both Simon and Paul to the board, both of whom have a huge amount of directly relevant experience which has already been proving highly valuable to us.
We also saw a very high take-up of warrants, and of course, as they have received our first payment relating to the Ombrina funding deal, and that leaves our cash balance in the best place it's been for a fair few years. I wanted to just take this opportunity to thank all our shareholders for their continued support. To sum up, we really have made progress. We say Sea Lion is in the most advanced stage in its history. Resources are up, costs are down. Real-world suitable and available FPSOs are identified. The Ombrina monetization is completed. The annulment hearing is completed. We've refreshed our board, and both Simon and Paul have many years of directly relevant experience and knowledge. We have the strongest balance sheet we've had for some years.
Now, I'm always at pains to point out there is plenty of risk remaining, but it is perfectly possible that by this time next year, we will have succeeded in the Ombrina Mare annulment, receive the second tranche payment, and have sanctioned Sea Lion. Those would represent really quite incredible achievements and the culmination of many years of hard work, which many of you have supported for a long time. As always, we're very grateful for that. With that, I'll wrap up this presentation, and thank you all for coming along.