Next up, we have Paul Brown, CEO of Core Lithium . Paul's got a background in project development, operations, and corporate strategy. Prior to taking on the role at Core , he had the role of CEO at MinRes Lithium and Iron Ore. Please welcome Paul to the stage. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks for joining us and thanks for the introduction. We put out a restart study in May this year, and I'll take you through how I've been thinking about the asset and really what we've been up to over the last 12 months. I'd like to start here. I'll just draw your attention to the back of the slide, which is our DMS facility. More recently, in the middle of the slide there, we made a pretty significant purchase of the crushing plant. Previously, when we were operating, we had an all-contractor model, which worked okay at the time, but really, as I started to pull apart the costs, it was pretty obvious that I really wanted to be in control of things like crushing and DMS. We've managed to do that, and we closed that deal just recently. A bit about the team.
James Bruce joined me about 12 months ago. A lot of you will be familiar with James. He's been in capital markets for a long period of time, but he's also a very talented mining engineer. James led the study and was a big contributor. We've also got James Virgo, who I introduced last year when I was here. James has been in the business for a couple of years now. More recently, Anthony Kirke joined us. Anthony brings a good skill set in project delivery. I'm really pleased to be able to attract and retain the team that I have. This is the team that also took part in the restart study. As far as our tenements, you'll see up on the screen behind me in the gray. We have about 500 sq km in the Bynoe pegmatite field.
You'll see the yellow, I think it's yellow or orange dot there, is where our processing facility is and also where we originally started mining, which was the Grants Pit. Just down from the processing facility is the Carlton deposit. We have BP33, which is our premier underground asset. We've also been doing quite a bit of work in exploration over the last couple of years, and we've identified a pretty juicy exploration target, Coal Blackbeard. We operate on Crown land. We have all major approvals in place. We maintain the site in a restart steady state. The first 10 years are in all reserves, which is the Grants and BP33 asset. Post-restart, I like to say our advantage. We've gone to an all-underground development.
When we were previously operating the plant and the general infrastructure was built for about 1 million tons, we've managed to increase that by about 20%. When we do get operating again, we'll produce around about 205,000 tons of SC6 equivalent, which is quite an uplift from when we were previously operating. Pleasingly, we have extended the mine life quite considerably, but importantly, we've managed to drag the costs right down. We have a unit operating cost of between AUD 690 and AUD 785. This is all in Aussie dollars. Even in a challenging market like today, we'd certainly be washing our face. We need about AUD 175 million- AUD 200 million in pre-production CapEx, which I'll talk you through how we're thinking about that later in the deck. As far as how I think about these ore bodies, as I said, we're going all underground.
If you have a look at the BP33, it's one large sub-vertical pegmatite structure. I guess I spent a lot of time in the lithium industry and mined quite a few pegmatites. Generally, they're shallow dipping, can be quite difficult to recover. Our structures are very similar. They've got very consistent geology. BP33 in particular is 350 m strike length, 40 m wide. A very large, very large minable structures that ultimately we have, which helps drive our cost base. You'll see Grants there, which was originally an open pit, better transition to an underground development. The key reason for that, apart from getting more tons out, is there's about 500,000 tons left in the open pit. It made sense to have a look at the asset itself and see what else we could do. Pleasingly, we've managed to turn that, we'll manage to turn that into an underground mine.
That'll come online at the same time as far as the development of BP33. BP33 will take us about 12 months to get down to ore, and Grants will be much quicker, about six to eight months. They're quite complementary from a development timeline. I've also added in Carlton here as well. When you think about common use of infrastructure, obviously, we'll start at Grants, but we can quite easily move across to Carlton should we require some additional tons, which I can talk about the upside case a bit later. Drivers of our costs, it's no secret, I've talked about the structure, but our stopes are very large, very large stopes. Pleasingly, our geology is incredibly consistent. Yeah, consistent. We're a high grade. When we're mining, we're in ore, we're only in ore.
We're not moving our fleet around, we're not chasing grade and various chemical aspects of the ore body. We're there and we're mining. Stokes are really large, make for good productivity. As we move through the restart study, it hasn't been just me and the team thinking about costs. It's also been well supported by third-party, independent engineering groups, mining groups. Our cost base has been built up of first principles and certainly been market tested as well. As far as the flow sheet is concerned, I'd like to say it really doesn't matter what flow sheet you think you have or you think you've tested. Where we've been focusing a lot apart from the flow sheet is understanding how we were previously mining. In my experience, mining hygiene through a DMS plant is critical.
What we've discovered, and we had an enormous data set to work through from when we were previously operating, is that we had a lot of issues around controlling those mining hygiene factors. We've considered all of that. The changes we have made or we will make to our flow sheet will remain quite simple. We've done quite a lot of additional test work when we were operating. We're operating at around about 65% recovery, which is not too bad in anyone. I'm sure you've heard a few people before me talk about recoveries, but we've actually, we actually were operating our plant. We know what this thing could produce. Even with a fair bit of dilution coming through at times, we've got a robust flow sheet. What we're actually looking at doing essentially here is now we own the crushing circuit.
We've been able to understand how that was being operated. We understand the opportunities that exist in that particular area. One of those areas that we looked to capitalize on was the amount of research that was happening. Those that do understand a bit about DMS, really anything that is 0.63 or smaller generally heads straight to the tail. If you have a whole bunch of additional research and things happening in your circuit, generally you have a pretty bad time right through the entire circuit, ending up with a whole bunch of things coming out into the tails facility. We've analyzed that part of our circuit. Pleasingly, we've focused a lot on liberation, and I talked briefly on the simplicity of our geology. It remains incredibly consistent. When you think about DMS, we've got large, coarse, beautiful green, pure crystals that we're essentially, once we mine, we're liberating.
We understand the cut point and the sweet spot to be targeting. There are some subtle changes in the rolls crusher that we'll look to optimize. When you think about this flow sheet, you should think about it in, I guess, two circuits. The newest addition that we will have is a gravity circuit. The material I previously spoke about that was generally ending up in the tails will actually capture about an additional 10% of that. We'll produce a finer type product with a grade of 3%+. Our coarse DMS circuit will produce the lion's share. We'll produce around a 3% in the fines and about a 5.5% or a bit over 5.5%, blend the two products together to eventually make a 5.2%. That's really the sweet spot of our recovery.
Pleasingly, what we eliminated through additional test work and reviews is we don't need a flotation circuit as was previously thought. Our flow sheet will remain very simple, which is pleasing. We don't have to add a whole bunch of power, bore mills, and things like that. Good optionality again. When we were operating, when we did produce a ton of product, it was well- regarded in the market. Again, being coarse grain was quite a desirable product. As far as logistics, another key point of difference is just how simple our logistics chain is. We're about 88 km away from Darwin or the port infrastructure. You'll see we'll process the material, place it on the ground, pick it up in a road train, and it'll go straight to port. The port has great capacity. It's not all used up like Utah or other ports here in Western Australia.
It's very simple. You'll see the picture there. It's a side loadout or side tipper into a bin and essentially onto a ship. We haven't had to establish any off-highway or, you know, haul roads or anything like that where we have access to an all-weather road straight out the front. We have a very proven, cheap, effective logistics chain. As far as customer base, you'll see there we're quite close to, you know, all the key export customers or markets. We operate in a Tier 1 jurisdiction. As I said, when we were operating, we produced a highly sought-after product. As far as sustainability, we've had a new government in the territory. I think one of the key mandates that this government was elected on was to get the territory going again. Whilst the territory is rich in minerals, it doesn't have that many operating sites.
Certainly, our site, which has had about AUD 250 million spent on it, we remain restart ready, is a key point of difference, I guess, for us. Certainly, we have a very supportive government that wants to see us succeed. Great, great government and very, you know, very accessible. You'll see the metrics. It's an important project for the Northern Territory and the people. We are probably one of the only drive-in, drive-out sites up that way as well. As far as hygiene factors, having people, you know, coming to site every day and driving home and be home with their family is another key point of difference for us. We have operated a couple of seasons up there. For those that have operated in the territory, it's either very dry or very wet. We have all the infrastructure and permitting in place. Again, another key point of difference for us.
We know how to operate in the region. As far as what we're up to currently, we remain debt-free. We're well- funded. We have appointed Morgan Stanley post the restart to help us with funding. We are pushing on to FID. I think we've got the price deck that'll enable us to operate in a market like today. What my intent has been since joining Core was to build out a long-term business. Regardless of the cycle, I think we've built it. We will build a business that can operate in the good times and certainly the bad. As you'll see, the CapEx breakdown, we've tried to be as transparent, I guess, as we can. We do have optionality around the CapEx, but certainly the lion's share will go into the underground developments.
Brownfield's upgrade in the plant will obviously enhance the recoveries, and a sustaining CapEx number that's relatively low. That's the base case. I think the upside is probably what excites us as well. You'll see the first couple of years of production around about 1.2. With the addition of the exploration targets that we've had, and also the purchase of the crushing plant, our crushing plant, where our front-end crushing is capable of doing around about 2.4 million tons, is quite a lot more than we're currently set up to do. Should the market dynamics require it, we could easily upgrade the DMS plant, bring online some more tons, and be easily producing potentially in excess of 2 million tons. We've got a robust base case, but certainly, we believe that we've also got a very attractive upside case as well. It's been an incredibly busy year.
I stood up here last year, and what I was asking for was a bit of time to work through what is the reset. I'd just like to say a big thank you to the team. I think what we've put out has been very well- received by the market. You heard Ken talk about the lithium winter. We certainly haven't frozen solid. We've pushed the project forward. We believe we're going to create a business for many decades to come. Thanks for the opportunity to present.
Thank you, Paul.