Good morning, everyone. It's great to be back in Noosa for another very successful conference. Today, I'm going to be providing an update on the Kalgoorlie Nickel Project. It's Australia's largest nickel-cobalt resource, and it's in the top 10 globally. It's very much a strategic asset, and we're making significant progress with our partners Mitsui Mining & Smelting Co., Ltd. and Mitsubishi Corporation. This slide highlights our location. Our flagship Koongari Project is only 70 km northwest of the city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, very much the mining capital of Australia, very supportive community and direct links to key infrastructure to support rapid project development. All of our tenements comprise about 3,500 sq km. The tenements in green are the subject of our incorporated joint venture with the Japanese consortium, and the tenements in red are retained 100% by Ardea.
Just to put the size of this resource into perspective, there's approximately 30 kg of nickel in every modern electric vehicle. One million tonnes of resources or ore reserve is enough to produce 33 million electric vehicles. With a global resource of some 6 million tonnes, that's a lot of EVs, and significantly with our 1.3 million tonne ore reserve at Koongari, you can see the scale of this project. A bit now about our strategic incorporated joint venture with Mitsui Mining & Smelting Co., Ltd. and Mitsubishi Corporation. Our partners have recently earned their first 17.5% in incorporated joint venture company Kalgoorlie Nickel Proprietary Limited, or KNPL. Our partners are fully funding the in-progress definitive feasibility study with a budget of AUD 98.5 million, and that will ultimately earn them a 35% stake in KNPL.
They earn their final 15% to take their interest up to 50% by making a final investment decision. What that means is we've got all the project approvals in place, and most importantly, we've secured the project development debt. With two such large, experienced resource giants, we're in a very good position to be able to develop Australia's largest nickel-cobalt project. A little bit now about Mitsui Mining & Smelting Co., Ltd. They've been a company that's been in existence since the 16th century. There aren't many companies in the world with that longevity. They pride themselves on leading the way with ESG, and I've been very fortunate to tour some of their facilities in Japan. They were doing reforestation activities and engaging with the community way before ESG became something that every company aspired to.
It's in their DNA, and they are also the most vertically integrated company in the world in the nickel supply chain. With Mitsubishi Corporation, they're very much a household name, and they've been investing in and supporting resource project development right around the world, focusing on Tier 1 assets. For our partners to choose to work with Ardea on the Kalgoorlie Nickel Project is a huge independent endorsement of the project. Our resources are all nickel laterites. Nickel laterites currently comprise about 80% of global nickel production, and that's secured through high-pressure acid leach technology. This technology was first utilized at Moa Bay in Cuba in the 1950s. Here we are in 2025, and we've seen our partners Mitsui Mining & Smelting Co., Ltd. develop two high-pressure acid leach projects in the Philippines, which is a very challenging operating jurisdiction. I've worked there myself.
Both of their operations achieved over 100% of nameplate capacity in under 12 months. We're getting off-the-shelf components, the autoclaves, the specialized pumps to deal with the high pressure and high temperature. This is proven technology that is successfully utilized in multiple projects right around the world. This figure really highlights the rapid growth in nickel laterite processing to produce either mixed hydroxide precipitate or mixed sulphide precipitate, and you can see the almost exponential growth there. When we completed our PFS in 2023, it was based on an MHP flow sheet. We are currently in the process of upgrading that to an MSP flow sheet. Mitsui Mining & Smelting Co., Ltd. is one of the world's largest producers of MSP.
We feel the MSP supply chains are less open to potential price manipulation by other producers, and there's more nickel content in every tonne of MSP, so your transport costs are more competitive and your CO2 emissions are lower. The key points in our project development are our partners' experience, the scale and unique geology about Koongari, working together with Ardea's local experience and stakeholder relationships, and also our partners' global expertise. Now, on the growing demand for nickel, we're all very much aware of the energy transition and the rapid growth in the EV sector. In addition to that, there's large-scale energy storage, and we're seeing batteries rolled out to households throughout Australia. We're seeing all the very large stationary energy storage batteries being deployed in Australia. The U.S.
and China in particular, they are the three nations leading the way in the uptake of that technology, but all of that places more demand on nickel. We've got traditional uses such as stainless steel, and you can see very strong growth rates there over recent years and forecasts of about 7%. We've got that compound annual growth rate to underpin demand from stainless steel, and then we put on top of that the exponential growth in the energy transition, electric vehicles, and energy storage. With that backdrop, we will be developing this large-scale long-life project. Nickel and cobalt are classified as critical minerals in Australia and also by ally countries such as Japan and the United States. We also have a very large scandium endowment within the mineral resource, so there's potential for this project to be one of the world's largest scandium producers as well.
However, the scandium market is currently quite small. It's only about 40 tonnes per annum. It will be rapidly growing, and the main use of scandium is to create lightweight, high-strength aluminum alloys and also in fuel cells. As the growth of scandium continues to expand, we'll see that increasingly so in the aeronautical and space sector, that demand, and it's again, it's potential upside for the project. With the development of the Kalgoorlie Nickel Project, it's all about this large-scale, globally strategic asset to provide supply chain security and diversity from the best operating jurisdiction in the world. We'll zoom in now on the Koongari Hub, and this serial image shows the key infrastructure passing through the project.
The Goldfields Highway rail line, and then the ore reserve blocks are shown in red, and you can see the open pit designs there extending over tens of km to put the scale of the project into perspective. We completed our 5 July 2023 PFS. We were producing on average 30,000 tonnes of nickel, 2,000 tonnes of cobalt for + 40 years. It's the long life of the project, and that was assessing only six of nine deposits. In all reality, once the project's developed, we expect it to be in production for well in excess of 50 years. We've also got additional brownfields optionality to scale up the project. Ardea still retains 100% of the Kalpini Hub. You can see a scenario where you could add a potential third and fourth autoclave at Koongari, leveraging off the sunk capital and the existing infrastructure.
In our DFS designs, we're already allowing space to put in a third autoclave in the future. We're very much planning for that expected increased demand in nickel and cobalt. When we completed our 2023 PFS, we were able to demonstrate bottom cost quartile operating costs, and that's essential for all projects to be cost competitive. On a nickel-only basis, the C1 OpEx is about AUD 10,000 a ton, and based on the cobalt price, your C1 cost allowing for that cobalt bulk product credit is going to reduce your OpEx further. As I mentioned earlier, there's the optionality to include scandium production subject to demand in the future as well.
Since we completed this PFS, we've been working with AMEC and a number of other Australian resource companies and the federal government, and we're very pleased to see the federal government, as part of the Future Made in Australia legislation, a production tax incentive. What that will enable us to be eligible for is a 10% tax rebate on our process operating costs. You can see on the pie chart on this slide that that is the main operating cost. That's going to be another cost advantage for the project that hasn't been factored into the financial metrics today. We're working with local, well-respected partners to complete our definitive feasibility study. We've broken this study up into six key areas: process, and that's been led by Ausenco, and then non-process infrastructure, geology, mining, hydrogeology, and approvals.
We're going wherever we need to around the world to get the best expertise to help us complete this significant DFS with a budget of AUD 98.5 million. We've just reached the halfway mark, and we expect to see increased news flow as the year progresses along with the DFS. I've mentioned our 3,500 sq km of tenure. We have our own internal pipeline of projects. The Eastern Goldfields is a world-class exploration and mining jurisdiction that the same tenements can host nickel laterite resources, nickel sulphide, lithium, gold, and other critical minerals such as rare earth elements and scandium. With our tenure, we have the opportunity for further expansion in the future as well. Very much focused on the DFS and developing Koongari, but there is this upside already within projects controlled by Ardea.
In terms of ESG, it's something Ardea has been taking seriously since the company first listed in February 2017. It's the best person for the job. We're leading the way in gender diversity. We've got a 50%/50% split. We've got very strong stakeholder relationships. Most of my colleagues and myself, we've lived and worked in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. We put a lot of time and effort into those local relationships, and we're incredibly appreciative of the support from the local community. We're putting in place mechanisms to reduce our environmental footprint and also our CO2 emissions. Our CO2 emissions are very competitive with all of our peers. Just in concluding, we've already demonstrated with our 2023 PFS a globally significant ore reserve, 1.3 million tonnes, underpinning a + 40-year mine life.
We're going to build upon that with the in-progress DFS being fully funded by our partners and the Japanese government. This project is a key critical minerals collaboration between Australia and Japan, and I'm very much looking forward to keeping all stakeholders updated as we progress Koongari to develop Australia's next large-scale, long-life, low-cost nickel-cobalt producer with potential upside from scandium and other critical minerals. Feel free to come to the Ardea pod and catch up with Matt Collins and I if you'd like to ask any more detailed questions and enjoy your time in Noosa and the rest of the event. Thanks a lot.