I'd now like to welcome Brandon Munro, Executive Chairman of Bannerman Energy, to begin the conference. Brandon, over to you.
Thank you, Operator, and thank you very much for everyone for joining us. This really is a seminal moment for the company and an extremely exciting time to be presenting a fully funded solution to construct and operate Etango. First of all, just by way of update on the Etango project, Etango early works are going very well. They are tracking in line with budget and schedule. I have been on site a couple of times in the last few months. The team is doing a magnificent job. As we have highlighted in the materials that you can access on the platform, all of the key work streams are going very well, including the bulk earthworks, which is now 92% complete. The detailed design works for the dry plant are 94% complete.
Everyone would know that we are fully permitted with all the environmental approvals and mining license in place to build, operate, and ultimately expand the Etango project. That execution plan is very well in place. I have spent time with the management team in Namibia over the last couple of months, and they are performing as well as you could hope them to. We are very proud of the work being done and the quality which it is being done at. Now, where we are at at the moment is we have spent about a year now doing bulk earthworks and other early works. We are now with this underwritten offer and the unconditional nature of the transaction will complete shortly, and that then puts us into full-scale production.
Which means that we will be targeting our first uranium production in 2028 with full ramped-up nameplate production during 2029 of an average of 3.5 million pounds of U3O8 per annum. What has given rise to this moment is our CNOL transaction becoming unconditional, and we have announced that all of the CPs have been satisfied or waived. Just to remind everybody, that is an investment by CNOL, which is a subsidiary of the Chinese giant CNNC group, where they are putting $294.5 million directly into the project, and that funds the balance of construction. They will also reimburse to us their 45% share of the funds that we have spent on construction to date, which is capped at $27 million. So upon completion, that will then be remitted directly to Bannerman Corporate.
In return for that, CNOL receives a 45% share in the joint venture vehicle, and by virtue of its 95% interest in the project, they have a 42.5% ultimate interest in Etango project. Very importantly, as part of that funding transaction, we have a market-leading offtake structure with 60% of actual production being delivered to CNOL based on arm's length terms at the time of delivery, with pricing based on a combination of fu ture term and future spot prices without any floors and ceilings. That comes with highly attractive payment and delivery terms. With all of the Conditions Precedent now satisfied or waived and the transaction becoming unconditional, we are planning for completion of the transaction and funds in by the end of this month.
That puts us in the strong position where we are to today launch a AUD 124 million underwritten institutional placement, and we will extend that to a share purchase plan to our shareholders, where we plan to raise up to AUD 10 million. What that funding does is it provides a very clear path for Etango, and therefore Bannerman, to deliver the next large-scale greenfield uranium mine globally. We are issuing the shares at $4 a share. As I have said, it is fully underwritten and that represents a 5.4% discount to the last close as at yesterday. What that placement does is, alongside our existing cash balance, the reimbursement of up to $27 million that we will receive from CNOL at completion, and of course, CNOL's direct contributions into the joint venture vehicle.
That means that we can really say that the mining ramp-up and working capital for Etango is fully funded and we are in a position to meet all of our 55% obligations towards any remaining residual working capital. The proceeds from the equity raising, they will be used for that 55% of share of the residual Etango working capital funding requirement. It also gives us ample working capital headroom, including further contingency and, of course, growth initiatives, and it covers our general corporate expenses and offer costs and financing transaction costs into medium term. I think what I would do is I would recommend that investors on the call look at both the announcement and the presentation that we have put on the platform together, of course, with all of the disclaimers that come with that. With that brief introduction, I would like to pass straight to Q&A.
Thank you, Brandon. As mentioned, we will now begin the Q&A session. For those listening by phone and would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. To withdraw your question, simply press star one again. When called upon, please use your handset, ensure your line is unmuted, and be ready to ask your question. Today, we kindly ask that you limit your questions to one and one follow-up, and you may rejoin the queue for any further questions will be addressed should time permit. Again, that is star one to raise your hand and join the queue. Your first question is from the line of Branko Skocic of JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Appreciate your time, guys. I was after some high-level thoughts on the current CapEx estimate, I guess, where you are seeing potential pressures or even opportunities, and then whether you have eaten into any of the contingency yet, obviously noting the ample funding headroom post this raise as well.
Thanks, Branko. The board with management has conducted very recently now a further review of the CapEx. I would like to point out that after a year of early works and bulk earthworks, we are on time and on budget and have every confidence in managing the execution risks going forward. What I am very pleased to tell the market is that after that review, we are comfortable that with everything we know today, that we will deliver the project, in accordance with the June 2024 controlled budget estimate, which was $353 million, which of course was given at a variability of ±10%. So we are very pleased with that result.
As it stands, we remain extremely focused on execution risk, and that was the primary purpose for a board visit a couple of months ago to the project where we spent time extensively, reviewing and quizzing the management team on the progress that they have made.
No, appreciate that. Just in terms of obviously targeting FID fourth quarter of this calendar year, can you just talk to the ramp-up of major construction spend post that? I assume the bulk of it will be early calendar year 2027 onwards, but yeah, any high-level thoughts there as well as the critical path items to monitor over the next 6-12 months would be appreciated.
Yeah. It's an interesting situation because FID will follow shortly after completion. It's a little bit unconventional compared to many projects because we've already been investing quite heavily in the construction of the project, and it has proceeded according to the construction timetable. There's no immediate change in what we're doing. We just simply continue with the existing construction timetable and approach, but of course, with the confidence that all of the construction funding will now be sitting in a joint venture bank account. The last year has been predominantly bulk earthworks, other early works, the first phase of construction, the first phase of permanent water pipeline, as well as delivering other forms of infrastructure to enable construction. Whilst this has been time-consuming and very important lead times that we wanted to put behind us, it also has been relatively light on the CapEx spend.
We've spent roughly $60 million so far in that year, and the bulk of that will be flowing over the next two years of construction into cold commissioning and then hot commissioning anticipated at the end of 2028. From here, we would expect the spend rate to increase as we move towards further construction of concrete.
The completion of the dry plant, and then moving on to the wet plant. I think, Branko, the final comment that I would make at that high level is we've done a lot of analysis on what are our long lead time risks, and they are actions and work streams that have already been taken care of. Of the equipment that we will need to construct and install into this mine, the one long lead item risk that we foresaw was the tertiary crusher. Some time ago, we placed the order for that, and that tertiary crusher is sitting in crates on site at the moment.
Much appreciated. Thank you very much.
Before we move on to the next question, a reminder, if you would like to join the queue, to press star one. Your next question comes from the line of Mark Wiseman of Macquarie Group. Your line is open.
Good day, Brandon. Congratulations on continuing to move forward here and not needing to lean on debt markets, for the funding stack. Just reflecting on the CNNC partnership, I wonder if you could just provide some perspective on that relationship and some of the benefits that CNNC can potentially bring here versus perhaps the DFS assumptions. Things like, can you give any color on their thinking around the next phase? The expansion or life extension phase, and also any of the cost assumptions. Are there any benefits that they're bringing on procurement or other factors? Thank you.
Thanks very much, Mark. To provide that color, let's go back in time a little bit. CNOL and the CNNC Group, they purchased the majority stake and controlling stake in the Rössing Uranium Mine back in 2019 from Rio Tinto. As you know, we've got a strong management team in country, and I've got strong links and many relationships in country after living in Namibia for five or six years. What that did is it enabled us to get to know the CNNC group and how they operate in Namibia very well before we launched this financing process. We got to know CNNC and the CNOL executives even better during the financing process, which was the best part of three years before we announced it earlier this year. I'm very pleased to say, and very sincere when I say that that was an excellent process.
It was pragmatic, it was very transparent, and I enjoyed it very much. Since announcing the transaction earlier in the year, we have continued to see only good things from the relationship that we have with our partners at CNOL. That has come not only through the ways that we have worked through the usual post-signing, pre-completion items such as Conditions Precedent and so on. We established a steering committee in the meantime so that we would start active cooperation with the CNOL executive team and their operating team in the lead up to completion, so that we had very much a running start on that relationship. Also that we could extract some of the benefits that I would come to talk to in a moment, Mark. That has functioned very well.
We have now got to know on our joint venture operating board is Gavin Chamberlain, our CEO, Steve Herlihy, our CFO, and Matthew Horgan, who is our VP Corporate Development. They have got to know now quite well their CNOL counterparts who will occupy two of those board seats on the joint venture operating company. So very cooperative. They are an excellent partner, not only because of how big they are, how vast their uranium demand is, but also their outlook, their long-term. They want the pounds to come out of the ground at least as much as we do. We have developed very good mutual understanding of what is important to each company. If I turn to what does that deliver beyond what we were contemplating when we put the DFS out in 2022 and the controlled budget estimate out in 2024.
There is no question that access to Chinese suppliers is a mitigation to inflationary cost pressures. That is a process that we have already started through that steering committee ahead of formalizing it at completion into a joint venture board. I am pleased to say that the first of those procurement exercises has come back positively with a Chinese supplier being qualified and then selected for the HDPE lining for the heap leach pads. That has come back with a not immaterial cost saving compared to the preferred alternative qualified non-Chinese bidder. We expect that to continue. Part of our challenge prior to this transaction was many people in our industry would understand that you can get very good outcomes from dealing with Chinese suppliers and Chinese technology.
For a single asset developer such as ourselves, the process of meeting, negotiating with, qualifying and ultimately trusting those Chinese suppliers can be quite daunting and quite challenging. Having CNNC, which is a revered Chinese giant, doing that pre-filtering for us, and in many cases using suppliers who have demonstrated their abilities in Namibia through Rössing, has just been a very significant enabler, and we hope that will continue. In terms of the expansion. The expansion is highly economic at current uranium prices, and we would expect to be even more economic based on our view of where the market is going from here. Obviously, CNNC and our partners at CNOL have that demand for that uranium, so they would be very keen for it to progress.
I think for most people looking in, given that we have such a large resource that does not need to be further drilled to be able to make a decision on that expansion, it is a fairly reasonable assumption that that will happen. I think the advantage that you might be touching on, Mark, from CNOL, is that with them there as such a strong partner for 45% of the funding obligation for the expansion, we have every expectation that that would become internally funded. We would anticipate and we have planned for the expansion to come in in approximately year five, which means that by the time we make that investment decision, we would already be operating profitably, producing free cash flow. The fact that we are debt-free in the construction of phase I means that we would anticipate very high levels of interest from debt parties.
Because of the low-risk profile associated with the brownfields expansion of an operating asset, we would expect that debt to be on very favorable terms, too. So having them there with such a large balance sheet meeting 45% of the funding obligation, I think means that our expectation is that that would be an internally funded expansion utilizing very competitive debt. I think the one last point, Mark, and you might have a follow-up question, but the one last point is that the offtake agreement with CNNC group is market leading, as I said before. It gives us a couple of very important levers in terms of how we mitigate operating and financial working capital risk as we ramp- up the project. The first is the attractive payment and delivery terms, which I have highlighted.
Significantly better than what we would achieve from arm's length purchases or what the industry norm is. I am talking months sooner to receive a payment than what would normally be the case. It is also the flexibility. Although that is an offtake agreement that covers 60% of actual production over the life of mine, it is entirely in Bannerman's discretion as to when we deliver those pounds to CNNC. So we can fall behind if it suits us, but more importantly, we can get ahead of that 60% if it suits us, which does give us significant financial flexibility as we start to produce our first uranium.
Particularly given that we have only contracted less than 10% of the production so far, it does enable us to have a very high degree of flexibility as to how and when we want to be paid for the first production that we are producing in the first year or so. I might leave it there, Mark.
Okay.
But by all means, hit me with a follow-up question.
Yeah. Thanks, Brandon. That is great color. With WNA this week, is there any update you are able to provide on the rest of the marketing book? Should we be looking out for more deals to be signed, or do you have time on your side? Thanks.
Thanks. I should have said at the outset to everybody, Gavin Chamberlain sends his apologies. He is in London at the moment with Matt Horgan, our VP Corporate Development, and Olga Skorlyakova who is our VP Market Strategy. They are in WNA meetings, and attending the World Nuclear Association Symposium. I needed to stay in Perth to get all of this resolved, and I have had the phone-based frustration of dialing into many of those WNA meetings on my computer rather than being in the room this year. In terms of the marketing, look, we have been sending a message that with that attractive CNOL 60% offtake agreement, that we are not in a hurry with the balance of our 40% contract portfolio.
To keep everyone on the same page, that is a 40% of the production where Bannerman has total discretion and control of both the nature of the parties, the terms on which it is sold, and also the information. There is some very important confidentiality ring fencing. That was to ensure that we can develop and have proprietary customer relationships with the offtakers or the utilities who contract with us with the balance of that 40%, which we see as a very important foundation for building a broader uranium basis. If you do not have proprietary ownership of those customer relationships, then you are not really a uranium business, you are a mining business. There is a distinction here. The other piece of background that you know, Mark, is that in September last year, we announced that we had entered into an initial two contracts with top-tier U.S.-based utilities.
They are two of the top utilities that you would want to come in as an initial contract and a very, very strong sign of support. They were entered into for approximately 5% of our first five years' production. Small contracts that were designed to demonstrate to the rest of the market, the uranium market, that we knew what we were doing, we were capable of entering into contracts, and we had a proof of concept over all of the logistics that sit behind contracting in this complex business. They were at fixed prices, and they were very attractive prices when we first negotiated them. By the time we announced those transactions the term price had caught up, but they were nonetheless consistent with the then prevailing term price. As I say, they are fixed prices with a base price escalated contracts.
To answer your question a bit more directly, Mark, we are not in a hurry with the balance of that 40% that we still have to sell. We think that this uranium market still has more to yield in the short- term, and because of the flexibility that we have got under our CNOL transaction and that offtake agreement, and the fact that we do not have any debt parties telling us how and where we need to mitigate risk, we are in a position to sit back and we do not need to contract anything further in 2029 unless we saw really good prices. That gives us a longer lead time to allow the market to tension up before we start adding significantly to those existing contracts, and before we start filling up the bulk of that remaining 40%.
That is great. Thanks, Brandon.
There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to Brandon for closing remarks.
Thanks very much. Look, I think just to close it off, what does this mean for Bannerman as a company and for investors? It is very significant for us because it is the final step in declaring a fully funded final investment decision for the Etango project. This market is traveling very, very well from a uranium fundamentals point of view. We have seen demand continue to climb.
We see new sources of unconventional uranium demand emerging almost on a weekly basis. If you are wondering what the supply response has been beyond a handful of mothballed mines restarting, we are it. If ever there is a signal to both fuel buyers and other market participants that a uranium supply response is very difficult to initiate, I think it is the fact that Etango is currently the only and will be the next greenfield mine that is fully funded in construction.
This means that we are fully funded. It means that we have got all of our residual working capital obligations backed by a strong balance sheet. It also gives us plenty of working capital headroom and the ability to not only manage the development of the market and uranium opportunities going forward, but ultimately to play a bigger role in business development and growth. I think with that, I would encourage you to read the materials that is on the Australian Securities Exchange platform and our website. For the shareholders, I really thank you for your support. It has been a long journey, and for new investors, really commend this offering to you.