I'm very much looking forward to being focused on strategy and inorganic growth. Now is the right time to be looking for our next project. To the balance sheet, number two on our checklist. Our Eloise mine is producing strong cash flow. Eloise generated AUD 63.3 million in net mine cash flow after capital investment in FY 2026, more than 2x or exactly what we did over the previous two years combined. It's providing strong cash funding support to the Jericho mine development and the Eloise processing plant expansion. On top of that, we have a debt facility from our offtaker, Trafigura, for $50 million, of which $30 million has been drawn. Some heat and seismicity issues. We understand these issues and we are managing them well. The commencement of mining in the new Jericho ore body reduces our single mine risk.
Eloise had a great FY 2026, achieving guidance for the third year in a row. It produced 13,064 tonnes of copper and 6,621 ounces of gold in concentrate at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 499 a pound. Production increases materially over the next few years as we complete the plant upgrades and obviously bring the new Jericho mine online. We've recently released our three-year production outlook. We have guided production of 17,500 to 18,500 tonnes of copper in concentrate this year, lifting to 20,000 to 22,000 tonnes copper in FY 2028. Lifting further to over 25,000 tonnes per annum from FY 2029. We double production over the next two years. Now back to the checklist items. I will address, very briefly, number seven, eight and nine. That's infrastructure access, jurisdiction risk and environmental risk.
We're operating in the Mount Isa region in Northwest Queensland, a great place to operate. A mining district with good infrastructure and strong support for mining, underpinned by the rule of law and institutional transparency. Good. We're working again. We acquired the Jericho deposit, located only four kilometers south of Eloise in January 2023. It was an exploration project when we acquired it. In April this year, only three and a half years after completing that acquisition of an exploration project, we sold the first copper concentrate from that project. Underground development at Jericho is on schedule to achieve a combined production rate from Eloise plus Jericho of 1.1 million tonnes per annum by December this year, in line with the commissioning of the 1.1 million tonne per annum plant expansion. Jericho is a great ore body.
It is very continuous and has similar geological and metallurgical characteristics to Eloise. During the June quarter just completed, we ran some Jericho ore through the current plant to confirm our metallurgical assumptions. To assess the optimal plant set up for later this year, a key step to de-risking the new plant commissioning schedule. The blended ore trial, that's blended Eloise plus Jericho going through, produced on-spec concentrate and average copper recovery of 92.3%. That compares well to what we're currently getting at Eloise of 93%-95%. For a first pass trial, that's an excellent result, well within actual normal operating parameters anyway of Eloise. The single feed trial also produced on-spec concentrate with average copper recovery of 90.3%. The results were better than expected given it was a relatively low grade parcel of ore that we put through.
We're not really in the guts of the ore body yet. Similar to the blended ore trial, the single feed trial provided confidence in the long-term metallurgical assumptions for the expanded processing plant and also provided useful information for how we optimize this plant in the future. Jericho development ore. We're not yet stoping, but the development ore is now being routinely blended with Eloise and processed. The ore body is performing well, and the recent grade control drilling in the Jolly Shoot actually produced better copper and gold grades than the ore body model had predicted. We're expecting a trouble-free ramp-up at Jericho during the December quarter this year. A little bit of history for those who weren't here last year or maybe even the year before.
With the acquisition of Jericho in 2023, a bigger processing plant was warranted at Eloise. We awarded an EPC contract to GR Engineering to expand the current 700,000 tons per annum plant to 1.1 million tons per annum this time last year. We've included in the design two important features. We designed it to minimize operational impacts to Eloise during the construction, right now, and we oversized most of the equipment ready for a stage 2 expansion to 1.5 million tons per annum. Both of these have been great decisions. The expansion is on budget and on schedule for commissioning in the December quarter. GRES are doing a great job. The exciting news, though, more recently, has been our commitment to develop Jericho as quickly as possible underground, and ramp up to the 1.5 million tons per annum mining rate by FY 2029.
Accelerating the stage 2 expansion to 1.5 million tons per annum requires increased capital in FY 2027 and FY 2028 to achieve that mining rate, but it is the optimum rate, and it brings value forward. Significant value. The 1.5 million tons per annum case is the best NPV and IRR option for this asset. The cost to expand the plant from 1.1 million tons per annum to 1.5 million tons per annum is minimal, only AUD 15 million, as most of the equipment is already sized for 1.5 million tons per annum. The additional capital expenditure is predominantly underground development and surface infrastructure, such as tailings, water dams, and ventilation. We've been able to commit to that expenditure because of the copper price. At current spot prices of around AUD 18,500 a ton Aussie, Eloise and Jericho generate sufficient cash flow to pay for the accelerated development and then some. We acquired Eloise in November 2021.
It had no reserves, two years of resources, and was producing 12,500 tons of copper annually. We now have a mine with a 20-year outlook and a pathway to 25,000 tons per annum copper. That's a tenfold increase in resources and a doubling of production. The market is slowly waking up to this amazing transformation. Number nine, our growth pipeline. The Eloise processing plant, as I sort of intimated, now has the largest resource base that it's ever had in its 30-year history. That's a great position to be in, but we're not stopping there. Jericho remains open at depth and along strike. We've got a great ground holding with strong, pervasive structures known to host mineralization, and we have got good geophysical targets along those structures. We're not going to die wondering.
We're going to drill deep holes at Jericho to try to understand the full extent of that ore body. This is interesting, worth noting. The drilling we conducted last year, last calendar year in 2025, increased the resource base at Jericho by 15%. It added 63,900 tonnes of copper to resources at a discovery cost of approximately AUD 0.015 a pound. That's amazing value add. That compares to the current copper price of AUD 9.20 a pound. We added copper resources at AUD 0.015. We would be mad not to continue drilling there. We have a large regional ground holding with the potential for a second standalone project. That would be a game changer. 10 to 12 targets will be drill tested this year at a cost of about AUD 6 million. Only time will tell. We're ready for growth. We have the team, we have the skills.
We now need the project. That has been about 30% of my focus over the past few years. When I take up the chairman role in October, it will become almost 100% of my focus. I'm not retiring. I won't be playing golf. I'm getting ready for an M&A frenzy. A disciplined M&A frenzy. We'll remain the normal caution. You know AIC, you know the caution, you know my background. We're looking for opportunistic, logical, value accretive acquisitions, but that'll be 100% of my focus. Checklist item number 10, the big one, valuation. Don't take my word for it. Listen to the experts. Paul Kaner at Ord has a AUD 0.90 price target. Ring the bell. David Coates. We're well ahead on schedule anyway, guys. David Coates at Bell Potter. It's a great story. We can David Coates at Bell Potter, AUD 0.95 target price.
Dan Roden at Jefferies, a AUD 1.00 price target. Peter Kormendy at Shaw and Partners, AUD 1.10 price target. Hayden Bairstow at Argonaut, AUD 1.20. Dan Morgan at Barrenjoey, AUD 1.20. In summary, we are progressively de-risking the 1.1 million tonne per annum expansion. We've committed to the second stage expansion of 1.5 million tonnes per annum by FY 2029, for which we don't need additional capital. We now have a mine with a 20-year resource base and a clear line of sight to annual production of 25,000 tonnes of copper. You cannot own too many AIC Mines shares. Thank you