I am happy to be here. Do I have control on the slide? Can you move to the next slide, please? Thank you so much. I guess that we skip the disclaimer and looking forward. You can have access to that through our website. I just want to start by giving you a brief overview of the company. Basically, we do have a project in Ecuador that called El Guayabo. This is a gold and copper project. There is about 9.1 million ounces AuEq in that project, from which 6.9 million ounces AuEq belong to us. This is, I would say, combined within two project and the exploration potential is tremendous here and it is open at depth and on strike for both project. This is a large land package.
What is interesting here, this is located about 6.5 km from the Cangrejos Project that has been sold at about AUD 650 million last year. We started to look at the project to do the evaluation. We are looking at putting together an exploration plan for that. We are hoping to give some good news for the market about that next year when we be ready to. The next one, our flagship is our Hualilán gold development project, which is located in San Juan, Argentina. We did a PFS study in May, and we disclosed in May 2026, and we advanced from exploration to execution on that project. This is a fully permitted project. The only thing is we have to renew our EIA every second year, which is a formality, but it is all under control.
The path we took with that project is we are going to develop first a heap leach operation, followed by the flotation circuit. The life of mining is estimated at about 14 years. For sure, reserve growth and target around the pit, that is going on. We are going to talk about that later. We see net opportunities there. This is really value creation. Next slide, please. Here to give you a brief overview of that feasibility study that has been published. Again, this is a fully permitted project, mid-tier jurisdiction in San Juan, which is one of the top mining jurisdiction in South America. This is about 100 km from San Juan, which is a well-known mining town, and about, I would say, 2 or 3 km from a paved highway. So really easy access.
Not about 1,700 m of altitude, so we do not have to deal with heavy snow, so it is quite accessible all year round. Capital efficiency. This is interesting project in a way that we can stage our initial CapEx to bring the full operation production. Basically, a couple of years, let us say within two years to build a heap leach operation. After that, from cash flow, we can basically do proper funding for the flotation circuit and increase production. It is a low operational risk.
This is bulk open pit mining with heap leach. Everything is quite conventional in the way it is mined. Later on, we build a flotation circuit that is going to commit at about 1.5 million tons per year. The other thing is maybe some of you are familiar with the RIGI system that has been implemented to attract large scale enterprise in Argentina.
This is already embedded in the feasibility study and I would say the benefits is about $185 million on the NPV. Overall, it is a 1.8 million AuEq ounces project, about 14 years of life of mine. The CapEx is $267 million, that includes the $35 million of contingency and about $48 million that is going to be for the power line. Basically that $45 million is going to be built by a third party. We believe that we are going to offset that CapEx from the initial CapEx. Compelling value of $1.1 billion at $3,500 gold price and $1.8 billion at $4,500. It is tremendous value on that project. Return about 35% and a quick return of about two years and 1.25 years at a gold price of $4,500. Next slide, please, Jane.
Here, that slide here, I just want to highlight what we had here in the feasibility study of May and where we are going. The thing is we are committed at updating our feasibility using NI 43-101 guideline to be able to, I would say, market the project here in America. Basically, what we are looking at is we want to bring forward production by one year, so beginning operation with a heap leach in 2029. All of the inferred should be transferred to indicated only. Basically, we are planning to keep pretty much the same amount of, I would say, ore in the mine plan. 69 million ton mine, about the heap leach of 8 million tons per year. We increased recovery by 5% because this is what the test work showed.
The idea is we know that the heap leach is going to be more than 120 days because of the multi-lift that is going to be leached. We feel good with about 75% recovery. Flotation is going to be about the same. Processing plan is about 1.5 million tons per year. As I said here, the power line is going to be built by a third party. That is going to remove a CapEx of about $45 million-$48 million from the initial CapEx, which is substantial. Something that we did not talk much about in the past, and it is all the upside work that we are doing now to go above and beyond that PFS. That will not be included, but this is the thing that is happening in parallel here.
We are doing diamond drilling at this moment in time, 35,000 m of drilling, to increase our reserve and resource base that is going to be put into the mine plan going forward. The leach pad is built. It can accommodate 90 million tons. We are going to use the full capacity of that in the, I would say, in the PFS. A lot of lower grade were stockpiled, but at that gold price, I think it is worth to put it in a stockpile. That is going to be done that way. The crusher conveyor and for the leach pad, I mean, the leach was planned at 8 million tons per year. We are looking at 10 million tons per year considering that, I would say the heap leach and inventory are going to be much higher than 69 million.
We are also doing some test work at this moment to see to unlock recovery. We saw some good result with column testing with a larger diameter, and we believe that we can reproduce that. The tests are currently ongoing at San Juan. For sure, the tailing storage capacity is for 30 million tons. We think that we can maximize that as well with our exploration campaign. For sure, we are looking at increasing our processing capacity from 1.5 to 1.7 to 2 million tons per year, which will generate significant amount of ounces above and beyond the PFS update. Nothing changed for the power line. We believe that we fully leverage that for the PFS. Next slide, please. Here, just to talk about exploration here.
As you can see, I will not go through all that in the matter to save some time, but you can see that based on drilling that we have now. We have many gap in pit, and I would say outside the pit that still need to be tested. We already test some of those zones with really positive result, need to go to assay lab to get tested. But we believe that we are going to be in good position to provide some good news for the market sometime at the end of Q4. The drilling campaign going to persist through a few more months in, let us say, 2027. Basically, all those results going to be used to update our block model, I would say mid-year 2027. Here you can see down below the timeline.
We are following that timeline, and everything is going according to plan with four drill at site at this moment in time. It looking really good to achieve each of these objectives. Next one, please. Here, perhaps you already saw that one for the people that knows a bit Challenger. This is the roadmap that we put together starting with the PFS in 2026. We are going to spend 2 .5 years now with this engineering procurement construction that is going to lead us to production in 2029 with the heap leach for two years at about 100,000 oz per year. The remaining 12 years is about 125,000 oz per year. Engineering, but then seeing on detail engineering with our consultant. We are doing parallel technical study to trade-off analysis to see different recovery for process for the leach pad.
We are also working to update, as I said, the NI 43-101 to have, I would say, a document to initiate conversation with investor here in Canada and the U.S. Exploration, we talked about that already. 35 m is going well here and we are planning to do the reserve and resource update mid-year next year, and basically strong of that update our mine plan and we will perhaps be in position to include some of the opportunities that we talked about and go beyond our feasibility study update. Financing here. Convertible debenture is in process. We already secured $24 million. We believe that we are going to increase that a little bit more over the next few weeks. The second listing also with advancing well. We already started some conversation.
The limitation at this aspect at this moment in time is having the technical report ready in the few months from now, which should be done in December and ready in January. We are looking at listing here in Canada hopefully, and basically, that is going to increase, I would say, pool of investor and basically sustain our share price. In execution here, we already started to send the bidding package for the long lead time equipment. It is out.
On top of that, we are talking with a company to do the construction of the power line. It is all permitted and we are ramping up now. This is ongoing. With the debenture that we just did and the money that we have in the treasury, we have enough to bring us to mid-2027, and that is going to give time to proceed with the financing of the whole project. Next one.
Here, just to get the five pillar that we have here. Commercial production 2029, we talked about that already. Increasing Hualilán and NPV ahead of construction with all the opportunities that I did explain earlier. Projects financing. We have a disciplined approach. We implement really good cost control system. We are refinancing our convertible debenture here. Basically, we want to complete a full project financing plan by mid-2027, and we keep the interest of our shareholders in mind, and we try really hard to minimize dilution. Exposure to external market is also very important. Again, the NI 43-101, the technical report that will support all that. We already upgrade to the OTCQX a few weeks ago, and we are looking at secondary listing, as I explained, which should happen sometime in Q1 next year.
For sure, we are going to continue to look at unlocking value with Ecuador, understand what is the value of that, and see really how this can perhaps support the, I would say, construction and initial CapEx of the Hualilán project. Final one, please. Here, just to recap all that, Hualilán is one of a kind of a project. It is really rare to find something that great. It is a fully permitted project. We target to be in production beginning of 2029 with heap leach. Everything is based on a really robust PFS with a quick payback and basically a stage capital. We have multiple opportunities here to enhance that project. We have a clear production roadmap across all engineering, financial, and execution, including the PFS. I would say the optionality that we have in Ecuador is something that we are seriously looking at.
But we have to make sure that we have the right price on it. As you can see here, we also have some catalysts down below here. We basically executing on each of them. It is advancing well. I would say the only maybe little hiccup that we have is exploration is going maybe slower than we thought, but we are prioritizing what is going to be the best target to provide really good news to the market on that later in Q4. It is pretty much what I have, Jane. If you have a question here.
Yeah. Thanks, Yohann. Thanks for your presentation. I do have time. We're running a bit close to time here, but I do have a bit of a moment for two more questions. You did just mention this in your last slide of the presentation, but is the company on track to deliver on the roadmap and catalysts?
Yeah, you're right. Thanks for the question. The company, we're doing good on that aspect. Basically, we'll be moving forward with the roadmap. It includes the PFS. We're having weekly meeting with our consultant on the PFS, on the detail engineering. We're talking with people about as well for our mobile equipment, and everything is going well. Looking at the catalyst as well, everything is well set up, and we're making sure to be on time to deliver on each of them. Basically, what we want is the market to judge us basically on our ability to deliver and to increase value on those, on the roadmap and the catalyst, basically.
Just one more question here. Are you advancing with the second listing option?
Yes. We are advancing with that. We have really good talk. The goal for us is to be listed in Australia, but as well here in America, and really open for an investor. We're advancing well. The limitation that we have at this moment in time is just to develop that NI 43-101 according to, I would say, North American regulation. After that, everything going to be put in place to promote the company here. It's advancing really well. Hopefully, everything going to be in place by, I would say, mid Q1 next year.
Thank you so much, Yohann. That is all we have time for today, but thank you for a great presentation.