Yeah, thanks, Peter. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join us. This is my first opportunity to address shareholders directly since taking on the role of Managing Director in July, and really looking forward to sharing how we're resetting Investigator Resources' direction and positioning the company for growth. Because this is a webinar, I want it to be a conversation, as much as an update. You should see a Q&A box on your screen, so please feel free to type in questions at any point as we go. I won't stop mid-flow, but I will come back to them at the end and aim to address as many as time allows. I encourage you to be engaged, use that function as we move through the presentation. Just sharing a quick screen here. Before we start, a quick disclaimer, fairly standard stuff.
To set the scene for today's discussion, I've put the main themes just up on the screen, and these will give you a pretty clear roadmap of where we're heading. First, I'll talk about the strategic realignment, why we've sharpened the focus on precious metals with silver right at the center. Second, I'd like to take you through the Paris Project Definitive Feasibility Study reset in some detail, particularly how we're capturing the value created by high silver prices and secured water, whilst at the same time making sure that the plan is financeable and approvals are fast-tracked to bring silver forward. Third, we'll look at the exploration upside. Paris is the cornerstone, but we also control a 15-kilometer corridor with real district-scale potential. I'll highlight our plans at Athena as the next priority within that corridor, along with some drilling at Kernamona to test some very strong gold-copper targets.
Fourth, I'll touch on how we're streamlining the portfolio by divesting non-core assets so that capital and management time stays firmly aligned with our precious metal strategy. Finally, I'll outline the news flow and catalysts that you can expect in the coming months ahead of the milestones that will drive value and keep the market engaged. First and foremost, I'd like to introduce myself properly. I'm a mining engineer with experience in the entire mining lifecycle, from early exploration through feasibility, permitting, funding, development, and steady-state operations all the way through to closure. At my core, I am a mine builder, and that's why I'm here. I would not have accepted this role unless I believed that the Paris Project could and should be built.
Over the course of my career, I've bought four mines, three open pit mines in Australasia, and more recently, the Kanmantoo underground copper mine right here in South Australia, which I led as the Managing Director of Hillgrove Resources. This last build is quite relevant. When I took on the MD role at Hillgrove in 2019, the Kanmantoo open pit had just closed, and my initial mandate was to wind down operations. In reviewing these assets, I saw an opportunity to extend the mine life through underground development. Over the course of the next five years, I led the company through the full cycle, reinitiating exploration, developing the feasibility study, achieving the permitting, securing finance, into development with the underground mining commencing in 2023, and first copper production in 2024, delivered on time and on budget.
That journey not only delivered value for shareholders but also built strong credibility with the South Australian government, which is going to be critical again as we take Paris through its own approvals process. Since stepping into this role about two months ago, a lot of people have asked me why I joined Investigator, and for me, there are three main reasons. First, I believe Paris is a project with far more potential than has been realized to date, but it needs a fresh approach. I actually reviewed the project back in late 2024 before I joined. At that stage, I thought that the approach was too narrow, and I recommended a larger pit design to capture more value in a rising price environment. To the board's credit, they initiated that work, and the results showed a clear improvement in project fundability.
That was pretty high-level, and since joining in July, I've picked up that work again and it has formed the foundation of the DFS reset, which I'll talk about in some detail. Secondly, I saw a value disconnect. In late 2024, when the company announced the delays to the DFS, the share price was heavily sold down, and in my view, incorrectly. That has created enormous opportunity. Even today, I believe the market has not properly recognized the underlying value of Paris. Part of that is due to limited communication and lack of visible progress on the DFS, and I'm first to acknowledge that in stepping into this role, my communication has also been limited. That's been quite deliberate. I have not wanted to make any promises until I properly reviewed the project.
Now that that review is complete, I'm ready to move ahead very aggressively and ensure that shareholders are kept informed along the way. I'll just share another screen. On communication, we have just launched a new two-way Q&A forum on our website. It's linked directly to all of our announcements, and I'll do my best to respond to everything that's posted there. If you are chasing additional feedback and in particular the truth, this is the place to go, far better than relying on speculation that flies around on things like HotCopper and other forums. Of course, I'm always happy to take questions directly on my phone. The number is on every announcement. In terms of outreach, next week we'll be on the road in Sydney and Melbourne to start educating institutions around Investigator Resources and where we're currently up to.
Our register is largely retail, which I highly value, but we'd all benefit enormously from more institutions joining our register, particularly as we seek to cornerstone the development funding for Paris. I'm very bullish on silver. There are strong structural forces driving the demand that we have not seen before. As the world continues to decarbonize, silver is critical in solar, electrification, and new technologies, and this is increasingly being recognized. Only recently, the U.S. government added silver to its critical minerals list. Historically, silver also outperforms gold during the precious metal bull runs. These bull runs where silver tends to outperform gold, the silver tends to lag gold early, but as gold becomes relatively expensive, investors will turn to silver, providing strong forces that drive the price upwards.
The last gold run really kicked off in 2022 and is still going strong, and the silver has just started to move over the last sort of eight months or so, up 30% this year alone. It remains historically cheap, as we can see on the current screen now with the current gold-silver ratio. It's sitting around 86 to 1, which is well above the historic average, and this just really suggests that silver is undervalued and has a lot of price upside. For silver, just to catch up to the historical average, we see a much higher price than where we are today. I have a very positive outlook on silver. All we need to do is to make sure that we are positioned to realize this value uplift, and that's my primary focus and a large part of the discussion that we'll be having today.
When I stepped into this role a couple of months ago, one of the first things I did was look at the company's overall strategy. What struck me was that while we have quality assets, the story is not clear. We've got silver, gold, copper, moly, tungsten, all competing for attention. One of the problems with this approach is that it blurs the investment thesis. A silver investor wants to invest in silver, not a mixed basket of commodities. It also dilutes capital. Every dollar has to work harder when it's spread across unrelated commodities rather than being channeled into a clear, coherent strategy. That's why I'm setting out to realign the business. Investigator Resources is now working towards becoming a pure precious metals company. Our focus is silver, and in the future, where it makes sense, if this strategy and an opportunity present, potentially gold.
Be assured that every dollar we spend, every hour of management time is directed towards the precious metals strategy. This sharper focus, I think, will send a clearer message to the market. I think it will strengthen the investment thesis and, most importantly, ensure shareholder capital is being applied where it creates the greatest value. At the heart of this strategy is the silver project, Australia's highest-grade undeveloped silver deposit and the cornerstone of our future, which is why the first step that I took here was to really reset the Definitive Feasibility Study to ensure that we capture the value and create a fundable plan. I'll share another screen now. Before I dive into the detail of the DFS reset, I just want to take a moment to remind everybody of what we actually have at Paris.
Paris is one of the highest-grade undeveloped silver projects anywhere in the world, so 57 million ounces right here in South Australia. The 2021 Pre-Feasibility Study showed we had strong economics with more than $480 million in free cash flow thrown off in the first few years, relatively short mine life. The important part is that since this study, the silver price is up around 70%. Simply rerunning the PFS model at today's silver price adds over $650 million worth of value, and that's before we consider additional ounces that the higher price allows us to bring into the mine plan. Here's what sets Paris apart. It's a Tier 1 asset with potential for low-cost, high-margin production, located in South Australia, a great, safe, stable, mining-friendly jurisdiction. We have district-scale exploration upside right along the Paris corridor, which I'll speak to in more detail as we work through this today.
We're perfectly aligned with the green energy thematic, with silver critical to decarbonisation through electrification. Finally, we remain undervalued to our peers. This is the foundation that we're building on, and it's why the DFS reset is so important to unlock Paris's full value. Since joining, I've been very much focused on pulling apart the Definitive Feasibility Study and testing the assumptions. What I've found is a study built on a set of assumptions that, in some cases, no longer apply and therefore don't reflect the opportunity that sits in front of us today. For a project of this calibre, it's really critical that the DFS is not just a technical document, but it's a living plan that captures the current market conditions, secures financing support, and sets us up for successful development. Two changes in particular make it clear that the project direction had to be reset.
The first, it's very obvious, it's the silver price. For the majority of the original study work, silver traded in the $20 to $25 U.S. range. Today, it's sitting over $41 U.S. dollars. That's not a minor fluctuation. It's a real structural shift. At these levels, Paris has the potential to deliver vastly more value than was contemplated in the earlier plans, and it also means that ounces sitting just outside of the original pit design, which were marginal at lower prices, now move firmly into the money. We can't afford to ignore that, so I've recut the plan to capture these ounces to maximise the exposure to the current and, look, in my view, a strengthening silver price environment. This is about making sure that every ton we mine delivers maximum value to shareholders.
The second transformational change is the confirmation of the Hector-Palio channel as a long-term water supply. Previously, water was a significant risk to the Paris development, and without a secure source, the project carried uncertainty that would weigh heavily on permitting and financing. That uncertainty is now removed, and the Hector-Palio channel provides a reliable long-term supply that comes with the ability to rethink, particularly, how we manage tailings. Now, instead of a capital and energy-intensive dry stack facility, we can move towards a conventional wet tailings facility, which not only lowers the upfront and operating costs, but simplifies the flow sheet, reduces power demand, and strengthens the project's bankability. Taken together, these two shifts, the materially higher silver price as well as the elimination of the water risk, are game changers.
They fundamentally alter the value proposition of Paris, and they allow us to expand the pit, reconfigure the plant, streamline costs, and, most importantly, ensure the project is financeable. This reset is not about delay. It's about ensuring we deliver a plan that captures the upside of a stronger silver market and leverages the secured water supply to simplify the design and ultimately accelerate the path to first silver production. Just to make it real, I want to walk through some of the examples of how these changes are reshaping the project, just starting with the pit design that you can see on the screen. If you look at the two pit designs, the pink is the Pre-Feasibility Study mine design, and the grey is what I'm now contemplating.
You can see that the pit is now expanded some 155 meters down towards the west, and it's about 30 meters deeper, capturing more ounces to sell into this stronger price environment. Because the pit has grown well beyond the areas we had previously had geotechnical coverage, we've actually been drilling at Paris over this past month to collect data. The drilling is just finishing up at the moment. This works exceptionally. It's going to tell us how it will let us properly design the pit slopes for the larger pit. Importantly, it's also testing some conservative slope stability assumptions that were made previously just in the absence of drilling, particularly the exact point where the rock changes from soft to hard and enables the pit to become a bit steeper.
The intent here is to demonstrate that steeper pit wall slopes can be adopted, which would reduce the strip ratio, lower the waste movement, and deliver material cost savings. Importantly, even with the larger pit, we're still taking the staged design approach that was used in the PFS, involving a smaller starter pit to bring silver revenues forward and then cut back to reach the ultimate shell. This means we can just bring more ounces in without changing the upfront capital outlay. Next, I just want to walk through the processing plant. On the screen, you can see we're close to the original flow sheet design.
What I want to do here is just walk through some of the changes that we're working on, not all of them, but they'll give you a bit of a sense for how much value we're aiming to unlock by stripping this plant back to its bare essentials. Firstly, in the crushing circuit, in the original design, there was a three-stage fixed crushing plant. We've taken that down to a single stage already, which is what's shown on the screen. We're now working on also moving away from a large fixed install, which requires really expensive civil works like wind walls and quite a lot of concrete, and instead looking at a prefabricated skid-mounted crusher. This is increasingly what the smaller, more agile end of the industry is doing to cut both install time as well as cost. The skid-mounted plants can be installed a lot faster.
They require a lot less concrete, a lot less steel, and strip out millions in CapEx. At the end of the mine life, rather than having to rehabilitate large areas of concrete and infrastructure, you can literally pick up the crusher and sell it into a very active second-hand market. That reduces the rehabilitation liability, the environmental bonding, and it makes permitting easier because we're not committing to major permanent structures. Not all of this is locked down, but it's the direction we're working on because it's about delivering the same throughput with less capital, less time, more flexibility. Moving along the flow sheet, coarse ore bin, this is what's been included in the original design. These are costly and quite large, and they're generally only used in plants that are close to large populated areas or in very large operations. They come with quite a lot of complexity.
They're expensive to build. They create a really large single-point load that has to be engineered, adds a lot of concrete, a lot of steel, and install costs, and they can also create a lot of operational headaches with segregation flow problems if they're not designed perfectly. At Paris, I don't think we need it. Instead, what we're working towards is a very simple coarse ore stockpile, either re-handled by loaders into a horizontal hopper or a feeder apron feeding a tunnel conveyor. Both perform the same function as the bin, basically acting as a buffer between the crusher and the mill, but at far lower cost and complexity. There are other benefits too. Without a big permanent bin, the environmental bond is lower because there's less infrastructure to rehabilitate at the end of the mine life.
That in turn just makes permitting easier because we're not committing to that large permanent structure. It's leaner, cheaper, simpler, but still does the job. Next part of the plant is really tailings, filtration, and detox. This is one of the most significant improvements in the reset, really replacing the dry stack tails concept with a conventional wet tailings storage facility. This is enabled by the confirmation that the Hector-Palio water supply is going to be able to provide long-term supply. That's a real step change because it strips out both filtration and much of the detox. Filtration is shown here. Detox is this second red square. Instead of having now to treat the entire tailings in-stream before filtration, the detoxification can now occur at the TSF discharge itself, basically at the spigots. That means we end up with a lot smaller circuits, less infrastructure, and less reagent demand.
The TSF itself also provides natural attenuation through high pond residence time, sunlight, aeration, microbial activity, which all help break down the cyanide further. The detox system only needs to achieve moderate levels of cyanide at discharge rather than ultra-low levels at the full plant flow. Much simpler, lower capital, lower operational cost flow sheet. There are also major cost savings from an operational point of view by moving from dry to wet tails. Dry stack tailings require re-handling of every ton. All the tons get produced over here, more than 10 million tons in Paris' case, to be transported by truck and then stacked mechanically, usually by front-end loader. With a wet TSF, the tailings are simply pumped as a slurry straight to the tailings storage. That removes an enormous amount of re-handling, equipment, fuel, labor costs, with a far simpler and more efficient outcome.
The flip side of this is that we're now designing a wet tails storage facility. These facilities aren't that complicated, but they do need to be built to a standard that the regulator is comfortable with because tailings represent one of the larger areas of regulatory focus. To support this, we've already had the requisite geotechnical and geochemical programs underway to demonstrate the design's integrity. Importantly, we'll construct the TSF out of waste rock from the pit, and that approach obviously reduces the amount of dedicated civils that's required, as well as lowering the construction costs. We'll also integrate the TSF into the overall dump design, which makes closure very simple and relatively cost-effective. Basically, at the end, all we need to do is doze the waste dump over the tails facility, apply a growth medium, and we're pretty much done.
By considering closure at the outset, we're not only cutting out some long-term costs and environmental bonding requirements, but we also de-risk and therefore fast-track the approvals process. The benefits don't stop there. Because the detox circuit is smaller, the downstream mineral crow, which I've just put up there, is also receiving less volume, which enables it to be downsized. This is critical because the mineral crow plant is one of the single most expensive capital items in the entire flow sheet. It doesn't scale in a linear fashion from a cost point of view. A modest reduction in flow requirements can translate into a smaller mineral crow and a disproportionately large reduction in capital spend. In other words, by simplifying the tailings and the detox, we've unlocked an outsized capital saving in one of the most expensive pieces of kit in the entire plant.
We just turn to the general layout of the plant, which I appreciate is pretty much engaged in this image, but really just turning attention to eliminating waste. One example in the original design is that we've got costly overhead pipe racks, which are sort of highlighted here in orange. They are really purely just to carry pipes and a few electrical cables. With some thought, the plant itself can actually serve the majority of that function, running services along thickness or tanks or existing plant infrastructure, rather than building specific, steel-intensive overhead structures that serve only to carry piping. These kind of changes sound minor, but collectively, they cut out millions of dollars of steel, civils, and install. I guess as you look at this old flow sheet on the screen, you can see how much of it we're attacking.
I'm not chasing a Tier 1, you know, BHP Rio sort of style build that's designed to last for 50 years. What I'm building is a no-frills plant. It's lean, it's hungry, it's effective, and it's designed for one purpose and one purpose only, and that's produce silver at the lowest possible cost. I'm completely unapologetic about this approach. It's one that I've taken elsewhere, and it's effective. It's an approach that also transcends just the cost savings. As importantly, it also sets a culture for the organization, and that's a culture that's disciplined, focused, lean, and built around doing what it takes to deliver value. In terms of the operating costs, finally, I just want to touch on those, particularly around the plant. Three big drivers are power, labor, and reagent consumption, particularly around cyanide and peroxide. Addressing these is central to driving Paris' economics.
On power, we're approaching SR2 products first, reducing overall power consumption, and second, reducing the unit cost of power. On consumption, filtration and detox circuits, they're particularly power hungry. By removing them, we're cutting a lot of energy out immediately. In terms of unit costs, really rethinking power supply. Instead of the fuel-hungry diesel generators that were in the PFS costing upwards $0.35, $0.40 a kilowatt-hour, our initial studies are starting to show now that gas with battery support, maybe with some supplementary solar, could almost halve those power costs for a pretty modest CapEx. We'll also be exploring those opportunities along with third-party power supply to move, I guess, a lot of the upfront capital to operating costs and spread that over the life of the operation. From a reagent point of view, really starting to review the addition of a shear reactor.
This is technology which improves leach kinetics and then reduces cyanide consumption. Relatively low capital addition that pays for itself fairly quickly by lowering reagent use. When thinking about operational costs in the plant, a key point, I guess, is this that at the outset, it's the combination of mining costs, processing costs, and metal revenues that really defines the optimized pit design. That's what sets the shape of the pit. Once that shell's locked in, it's really the processing costs that drive the incremental cut-off grade. This is the decision when the material's coming out of the pit of whether it's ore or whether it's waste. Just share another slide quickly. By bringing down the operational costs in the plant, the incremental cut-off grade falls. At Paris, we've got a really steep grade tonnage curve right around that cut-off.
Even a small drop in processing costs can convert a significant volume of material from waste into ore. On the screen, it's the steepness of the green line within that red box that I'm really trying to exploit to get more ounces recovered, more silver poured, and basically more metal sold into what is now a much stronger price environment. The key takeaway here really is that modest operational cost savings in the plant cascade into outsized production gains. That's why I'm so focused on simplifying and streamlining this flow sheet and why it matters so much. Once we lock down the revised flow sheet and pit design at a pretty high level, the next step really is then to right-size the operation. I'm really starting to look at all scenarios between one and two million tonnes per annum to determine what throughput provides the most financeable plan.
We've already recut the costs and the metal schedule for the newer, larger pit at different production rates. Once we've got these processing locked down, we'll be running updated capital and operating at those different production scales. This creates effectively a hill of value where you can see the trade-offs between production, capital intensity, operating costs, and mine life. In determining throughput, I'm not just looking at a technical optimisation. I'm deliberately viewing this through the lens of a financier. This means stress-testing the project under downside price, cost, and production scenarios, and overlaying the key funding metrics that lenders use, particularly debt service cover ratio, reserve tail, and repayment profile. Over the next few weeks, this work will guide us to the throughput rate that delivers the best outcome from a financing perspective. Only then will we be moving into that detailed engineering.
The mission here is not really just to publish a DFS on its own, but to produce a plan that I can take directly to finances. The mine plan has already been stress-tested against their benchmarks and stands up as a financeable plan from day one. That's what'll get Paris built, and that's the standard that we're going to be holding ourselves to. Finally, on the DFS, let's just talk quickly on permitting. I know a lot of people might be concerned and no doubt frustrated about the DFS timing. Let me be clear. My focus is not on when the DFS document is published. It's on when we pour first silver. The silver price is rising, and I do not want to miss that window. That's why I'm driving permitting as hard as I can.
To get a swift outcome, it's really essential to engage early with government and ensure the DFS studies are scoped to the government's requirements. Yes, this is more work now, but it actually removes risks and brings forward first silver production. Missing fundamental studies at this stage only will lead to further rework later, which is both costly and will delay production. Over the past month, we've already begun engagement with the South Australian government on the mining lease application. This is where I bring real experience at Kanmantoo. I took the project from closure of the open pit through those feasibility studies, permitting, funding, into development. It was one of the last mines that was permitted in South Australia that actually started mining. We did it successfully, on time and on budget.
That credibility matters with state government because they've also got limited resources and prefer to dedicate them to projects that are actually going to be built. I tend to bring that same discipline and drive here at Paris. To reinforce this process, we've brought in JBS&G, one of the most experienced permitting groups in South Australia. On our team, we have the former Deputy Director of Mining Assessments, who is very well placed to ensure our submissions will be properly scoped, aligned with government expectations from the outset, and facilitated as efficiently as possible. Whilst the DFS is now targeted for the first half of 2026, what really matters is that the approach shortens and de-risks the path to construction and first silver. With the finance-first mentality I outlined earlier, the study we deliver won't just tick a technical box. It'll be bankable.
The permitting will be ready to move quickly without rework or delay. This is where we're at with the DFS, and I hope you can see the energy-focused commitment that I'm now bringing to this. This project is moving ahead with purpose and with the aim that's very clear. It's to fast-track Paris to first silver production. As we talk about exploration, I'll just share another screen. Paris is just the beginning. We are positioned within a 15-kilometer long silver corridor. It's geologically similar to Paris, peppered with drill hits to confirm widespread silver mineralization. For example, at the north at Apollo, we have 8 meters, 1,200 grams per tonne grade drill hit.
All the way down to the south, 3 meters, 86 grams per tonne, including 1 meter at 218. There are a lot of hits in between, with some encouraging hits of lead and gold thrown in for good measure. Exploration is ongoing all the way out, all the way through this corridor. It's helping to build a really clear picture of a district-scale silver system that has long-term potential. Within this corridor sits Athena. It's about 11 kilometers to the southeast. It's a high-potential silver target that's been largely overlooked. Originally, Athena was drilled for iron ore. Many holes were stopped once they passed through the magnetite body, despite being within silver mineralization, but that wasn't assayed for at the time. Following continued success at Paris, in 2013, some of these holes at Athena were actually reassayed for silver, and they showed some pretty impressive results.
We had 5 meters at almost 500 grams per tonne, including 1 at 950. There wasn't really any follow-up. Years later, this ground was picked up by a private company, and earlier this year, we secured Athena through an earning agreement. The first thing we did after the earning was executed was to begin to work through some of the historic data. In July, we reported that we found additional intercepts that had never been released, including 7 meters at 111 grams per tonne. These results had been overlooked for more than a decade. I walked the Athena ground in my first couple of weeks with the company, and where the historic drilling has occurred, the iron mineralization is evident. It's outcropping on surface. The geophysics show there's actually another magnetic body immediately adjacent with the same magnetic signature.
Because there's no surface expression, this target wasn't known at the time and was never drilled. At Athena, we don't just have a system that's underexplored. We actually have multiple bodies, which you can see in the bottom right-hand corner of this slide deck. They're side by side, one with proven silver and another one completely untouched, but showing a very similar mag signature. We've recently just undertaken a gravity survey over Athena. The survey is designed really to help us understand how these bodies link together, define the scale of the system, and prioritize the drill program. This data is currently being processed. I expect that to be ready early October, and those results will really help guide the first ever dedicated silver drilling program at Athena that will get underway shortly.
If successful, Athena could be a natural addition to Paris, adding both scale as well as mine life, and is the first step in really transforming what is currently viewed as a single deposit, Paris, into more of a district-scale opportunity. Following on from Athena, we'll also be chasing up other targets within the Paris corridor, with particularly Mantoux and Perseus identified as the next priorities once Athena is drilled. Paris is a cornerstone, but the broader Paris corridor, with Athena as the first major step out, followed by Mantoux and Perseus, shows that we've got some real potential for something a lot larger. Really nice setup for value appreciation. DFS will deliver the foundation, and exploration across the corridor builds a growth pipeline for the next decade or so. Proximal to Paris, we've also got the Uno-Morgan complex.
It's a prospective silver area where earlier drilling by Investigator has returned shallow intersections of silver, lead, and zinc mineralization. We have a first-pass source program kicking off towards the end of the year at Urilla Hill, and we're targeting their IOCG potential. At the same time, a gravity program over key targets at Piranha. Whilst Paris corridor and I guess the Uno-Morgan complex provide silver opportunity, we also have a number of gold copper exploration targets at Kernamona. It's just located in eastern South Australia, not far from Broken Hill. Kernamona is a really exciting target. It's supported by coincident magnetic gravity IP and soil anomalies that point to a strong mineralized system. Drilling will commence next month to test these targets, and that'll be the first drilling that has been done in this area. For Investigator, Kernamona really represents optionality.
If drilling confirms a gold-rich system, it could complement the precious metal strategy and earn a place in our portfolio. If it proves to be more copper dominant, the results will inform the best way to crystallize value while keeping the company's capital really directed towards silver. Either way, the drilling is necessary because it provides the data that's needed to unlock the value without diverting focus from Paris. Plenty of exciting exploration activity is ongoing in South Australia as we went through the Paris DFS. Just a quick word on the rest of the portfolio. Over the past year, we've sold off the Stewart Shell asset in South Australia, Whitesburg asset in Tasmania, and we'll keep looking for ways to sharpen our focus and make sure that capital is only being directed towards precious metals. The obvious, I guess, square peg round hole asset that we've got is Molyhil.
It's a tungsten project in the Northern Territory. It's a good project, but it doesn't really fit our precious metal strategy. That said, it does have value, and the board is considering a range of options to make sure that value is realized for shareholders without pulling capital away from our precious metals focus. Let me just finish by giving you a sense of the news flow that you can expect over the rest of this year and into early 2026. On Paris, we'll be providing regular updates as we hit milestones, not just waiting for the end of the DFS.
This will be things like pit design updates once the current geotech results come through, progress on simplifying the flow sheet, which I went through, throughput trade-off study we discussed as we refine the mine plan through a financing lens and really working on the infrastructure, in particular, some of those power-related solutions. On the permitting side, I'll be keeping you posted as we move through the mine lease application process with the South Australian government. As I've highlighted, there's a really exciting stream of exploration news. First up, we have Athena gravity surveys coming next month, and right after that, we'll design the drill program so we can get that underway. Next door, we have the early-stage exploration works at Uno-Morgan complex with the Urilla Hill soil program, as well as the Piranha geophysical survey.
Further east, Kernamona drilling kicking off in October with results starting to come in November and December. Plenty of catalysts are in the pipeline for the coming months. To close, I guess the message is pretty straightforward. We have realigned the strategy to a clear precious metals thesis. We've reset the Paris DFS to be lean, financeable, and faster to first silver. Importantly, we're advancing the permitting in parallel. My focus is not simply on just delivering a DFS. It's about getting Paris into production and pouring that first silver as quickly as possible. We're building optionality through disciplined exploration in the Paris corridor, starting with Athena and whilst managing some of the non-core assets to crystallize value without distraction. This is how we're looking to create value for shareholders, and that's the path that we're on.
I guess that's the update of where we are and where we're heading, and I'd love to hear from you. Please use that Q&A function if you haven't already, and I'll work through as many as time allows.
Thanks, Lachlan. Pretty comprehensive, which is great. To have you at the helm and give people an update today such as this, I think it will be very welcome. We've got some questions coming through. The first one, straight off the bat, as you'd expect, the question is, you've delayed the DFS again. The PFS was done back in 2021. What have you been doing for the past three to four years? Why should we believe this will be different?
Yeah, look, really fair question, and I appreciate the frustration that's coming through in that question. Look, let's address it head-on, right? Paris has been studied for a long time, and whilst I can't speak for every decision in the past, what I can say is that the earlier approaches were really based on assumptions that no longer apply, particularly around the silver price and water availability, as well as costs, particularly in the plant that's been, I guess, designed beyond what was necessary for a project of this scale. The work done in recent years is not wasted, so it's important to stress that, but it was built on a different foundation. What's changed now is that silver is some 70% higher at the time of the last PFS, and we've confirmed now a long-term water supply through the Hector-Palio channel.
Those two factors alone fundamentally changed the project as I went through. They allow us to expand the pit, capture more ounces, and move from a dry to a wet tails design that cuts out that CapEx and OpEx material. The reset is not about defending the past or kicking the can down the road. It's really about taking the project we have today, configuring it to be financeable, buildable, and profitable in the current environment. I've built mines before, and the standard I'm holding us to is producing a plan that I can take directly to financiers, and that's what'll get Paris built. I know it's frustrating to hear the word delay, but I really want to reemphasize that we're not just focused on the DFS publication date. This is just one step in the process.
We are advancing the permitting in parallel, which ultimately means a shorter de-risk path to construction and production, and a project that fully reflects today's stronger price environment.
Thanks, Lachlan. Follow-up question here. There are other silver companies listed in the ASX. Why should investors back Investigator instead of somebody else?
Yeah, okay, good question. I think three main questions to consider. First, Paris is one of the highest-grade undeveloped silver deposits globally. Importantly, it's a genuine silver asset. Most other silver explorers on the ASX are not, in fact, silver explorers. They promote silver equivalent because the silver price is heating up, but their primary product is usually lead or zinc with a small silver byproduct. Paris's value is actually driven by silver itself, and that means when the silver price runs, Paris captures the full upside, whereas some other explorers or mines will only capture the small portion that is silver, but most of the revenue will come from their primary commodity like lead or zinc. Both of those prices are flat or down this year. Second, we're in South Australia, a stable mining-friendly jurisdiction. We've already got credibility with government from past mine builds.
Finally, we control a district-scale silver system, the Paris Silver Corridor, and that gives us huge growth potential well beyond the current Paris mine plan. I think when you combine that with a finance-first DFS reset and a team that's built mines before, you get a project that's not only technically sound, but also positioned to be funded and delivered.
Thanks, Lachlan. The question here on everybody's lips, what are your thoughts on the silver price outlook? We've had this great structural breakthrough when you've joined the company. It's great timing. Your thoughts on silver from here?
Yeah, look, the timing is good. In short, very bullish. I actually have some slides from a presentation deck I gave in Noosa that might just assist in me explaining that a little bit better. Look, we all know, right, in times of global uncertainty, investors turn to gold as a store of value. I guess what is less understood is that silver outperforms gold when the precious metal markets run. Silver lags gold usually in these rallies, but once gold heats up and becomes expensive, silver typically follows with greater momentum, creating a powerful second wave that eclipses. On the screen, if we look at the last couple of major bull runs, 1970s, gold went from $35 an ounce to $850, 24 bagger. Yeah, huge. Silver over that same period was up 35x. In 1999 to 2011, gold quadrupled. Same period, silver was up tenfold.
Gold price really started kicking off the current bull market in about 2022, and silver is now really starting to move. It's up 30% this year alone. If history is any guide, it really suggests it's got a long way to go to both catch and pass the gains that gold yet made. There are a few reasons why that happens. Firstly, silver has dual utility. Unlike gold, which is primarily a monetary metal, silver is both a store of value as well as a vital industrial metal. It's essential for solar electronics, EV, green energy tech. As decarbonisation accelerates, silver demand is being driven by powerful structural forces that gold simply doesn't share. On the supply side, only 25% is coming from primary silver mines. The rest is a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, and zinc mining, as I alluded to before.
The reality is that the copper and gold miners aren't going to change their production profiles just for a bit more silver when the silver prices are. This leaves us with a silver supply response that's relatively price inelastic. It's got a really nice setup where we've got growing demand, pretty inflexible supply, and generally what happens next is the price runs. In addition to that, we've got really fully 75% of global supply coming from Latin America, China, and Russia. Not exactly the poster children for operational and geopolitical stability. There is very little, I guess, that comes from true Tier 1 investment-grade jurisdictions. For the past four years, the silver industry has reported annual silver deficits of about 100, 200 million ounces, about 25% of global production. This is a huge amount.
With decarbonization fueling demand, its shortfall is really going to be projected to continue, and this is what is going to provide future upward pressure on price. If we look at the macro side, huge global money printing, rising debt, credit downgrades, and really a general loss in confidence of fiat currencies all over the world are just driving investors towards precious metals as a hedge against inflation. The central banks, which is what's shown on the right-hand side here, have been ahead of the game. A while ago, they started doubling their gold purchases, and retail then followed in behind. The key here is that silver has largely flown under the radar to date. You can see this in the gold-silver ratio. As I said earlier, this is about 86 to 1, well above the historical average. This just implies really that silver is cheap in historical terms.
If that ratio normalizes, silver could easily jump another 40, 50% just to catch up. Of course, that all assumes that gold doesn't continue. If gold continues to rise, which we're seeing currently in the market, then all bets are really off about how far silver could go. To summarize, demand is growing, supply is inelastic, deficits are real, and if history tells us anything, silver's got a lot more room to run. Pretty bullish.
Great summation, and just causes me anxiety for my lack of silver exposure in the market. Let's see, what have we got here? Some more coming through on the DFS again. Why delay it again? Are you just kicking that can down the road?
Yeah, a bit similar to the first one. Look, it's not really about a delay for the sake of a delay. It's really about capturing the value and getting to first silver sooner. As I said, the two things that have fundamentally shifted is silver prices up and the long-term water supply is there. By taking these work streams together now in greater detail, we can also fast-track permitting in parallel and avoid that costly rework later on. The DFS, as I said, targeted for the first half, sorry, of 2026. With the permitting process underway, what I'd expect is the DFS is released and shortly thereafter the mine lease application goes in. What this is really doing is just concatenating it all and meaning we get to first silver production earlier.
Thank you. Financing, what confidence can you give us that Paris will be financed?
Yeah, okay. I guess my focus is on really producing a plan that's got a, I guess, a finance-first mentality rather than just technically complete. We've been stress-testing this study with downside scenarios, running through those lender metrics, particularly that debt service cover ratio, reserve tail, repayment profile. The main ones are going to be looked at for something of this scale before we really finalize that throughput and get into the engineering. This means that we'll end up with a DFS study that I can take straight to financiers with the confidence that it's going to meet their benchmarks. I'm not coming to have to come back and rework that study. Really important to do that early on.
A lot of DFS or studies that you see out and about really miss that step, and they get to the point where they're presenting it to financiers and it doesn't quite stack up. Having just gone through that process really quite recently at Kanmantoo, I've got a very good understanding of how that works. We're making sure that at the outset we've got a plan that will meet those metrics and we can get financed straight away.
Thanks, Lachlan. Next question. Won't moving to a conventional wet tailings facility increase environmental risk and slow approvals?
Yeah, it's an interesting point. Look, actually, I think it does the opposite. With the water secured through the Hector-Palio channel, a wet TSF is both simpler and more financeable. It eliminates costly filtration, tailings re-handle, reduces detox requirements, lowers the power demand, and cuts both capital and operating costs. From a regulatory standpoint, it's worth really noting that there are no constructed dry stack TSFs in South Australia. That means that their main benefit elsewhere, like regulatory familiarity, doesn't really apply here. In fact, I believe the true risk of dry stack is not really well understood, particularly with very fine tailings that may contain residual cyanide or sulfides that can lead to, say, after mine drainage. When tailings is very fine, when it's dry, it's very light and can be lifted in windy conditions, dispersing over large parts of the countryside.
Generally, when you're running a wet tailings dam, the mission is always to prevent the tailings from completely drying out and allowing that dust lift. In a dry stack tails, that's exactly what's happening all the time. Over time, it would not surprise me if regulators actually shift right back towards a wet TSF and the management of those as a safer, more reliable long-term solution. In any case, we've already communicated our move to a wet TSF to government, and they're comfortable with that approach. They've simply highlighted that we need to complete the supporting geotech and geochem test work, which is already underway, as I talked about. As I said, to further de-risk, we've engaged Deputy Director of Mining Assessments to ensure our design and the submissions really align with what the regulator expects.
We actually have a whole government meeting kicking off very shortly that involves not only the Department of Energy Mining, but also the EPA, Department of Water. They'll be the key groups that'll assess the mining lease application. Early engagement of this matter is really essential to make sure we scope this study correctly and ensure that the customer, which in this case is the regulator, gets the information in the format that they need to be able to easily assess the project. That's really the secret to fast-tracking approvals. Importantly as well, I guess we are designing the whole mine, but in particular the TSF with closure in mind. We'll use pit waste rock for construction and integrate into that dump design. What that'll mean is it really reduces the civils and lowers the closure cost and the environmental bonding.
This also assists in getting the approvals faster rather than slower. Far from adding risk, I think the wet tails will simplify the flow sheet, reduce the cost, and that strengthens the bank's ability. It also has full regulatory alignment provided the supporting test work is done, and that's exactly what we're doing.
Okay, thanks, Lachlan. Permitting, how long do you think permitting will take?
Yeah, I guess the DFS is targeted to come out early next year, calendar year. With the permitting underway and that in parallel, I don't expect there's going to be a huge amount of time before that's launched. Say that's also first half of 2026. That's definitely the timeline that I'm targeting. I would expect around 12 months for that process, but it is a regulatory process. This is why it's really important to engage early and make sure that it's been adequately scoped. Where the delays occur is where you either lose cadence, so you lose that engagement with the regulator, or you get distracted and go off drilling something or not really just keeping focused on that mine lease application, or if it's been inadequately scoped.
Really putting a lot of effort in this front end to make sure we get it scoped appropriately and we get that going. Now, immediately following the mine lease application is called a PEPAS. This is a program for environmental protection and rehabilitation. It's essentially the environmental permit. If you think about the mining lease application as a mining permit, the next part is the environmental permit. We'll kick this off whilst the mine lease application is progressing, and these two will run basically in sequence rather than back to back. That's why a lot of the studies that I've recently commissioned have been structured to serve multipurpose. They're not only feeding into the DFS, they'll feed into the MLA, but they'll also feed into the PEPAS, so the mining permit as well as the environmental permit.
This just reduces the amount of rework that has to be done later on. The final piece is native title mining agreement. We already have a great understanding of the song lines, important heritage sites, and we've been designing the project layout with these in mind. From here, I expect the process will be commercial negotiation to ensure traditional owners benefit fairly from hosting a mine within their lands. Whilst permitting is never quick, by engaging early, structuring the studies the right way, we're really de-risking this process and setting up to move pretty swiftly through the DFS once it's finalized.
Lachlan, how much capital will Paris need and how do you plan to fund this?
Still finalizing this with a reset. I would expect to see something similar to the previous study. It's going to be a leaner capital profile than the previous study, but there has been price inflation. I think my expectation is that they'll largely cancel each other out. In terms of funding, I guess it'd be a mix of debt and equity. Our job is to structure it so that equity dilution is minimized. That's why it's really important to seek this institutional support. That's why I'm going on the road next week to Sydney, Melbourne to start to really get Investigator back into, I guess, back on the radar of those instos and start that process off and hopefully get more people to register.
Okay, we'll let it exhaust our extensive questions. I want a couple more just at the last minute. Is it possible, Lachlan, to estimate a mine life for Paris? Would you have an aspiration, based on what you've seen in your reviews? Would you have an aspirational outlook for that?
I guess based on what I'm seeing at the moment, it's very much been on the throughput rate. I've talked about doing the throughput studies from 1 million to 2 million tonnes per annum. Depending on what that number is, we'll define what it is. I think the ultimate pit design is in that order of around 11 odd million tonnes. Just divide that number through how fast the throughput rate is. Gut feel is probably around about 1.5 million tonnes per annum, and that's mainly because that delivers about a 7 to 8 year mine life. That's substantially easier to fund in terms of balancing out the reserve tail on one end and pulling against that is generally the debt service cover ratio. Those two things pull against each other.
A 7 year mine life enables you to spread those repayments out, manage the debt service cover ratio while still providing, you know, generally what a financier would like to see is 25, 30% reserve tail after their repayments are fully completed. That's the key balance, and I think that's probably what will ultimately drive the value will be around those key funding metrics. Hence the reason we're running that hill of value study with the different production profiles now to make sure that when we build this and we run forward with a future cash flow that comes out at the end of this and present that to financiers to see and they're going, yeah, this will make sense.
Lachlan, finally, just combining a little bit of the CapEx and funding question, what progress has been made on debt and equity funding? Is it perhaps too early to talk about that yet? With CapEx, given the change in silver prices, do you see that that will have a change in your estimation costs differing from the PFS?
What the silver price does is it enables us to really consider the cut-off grade, as I spoke about. It may mean that we're actually bringing in more material, but at a slightly lower grade into the mine plan, which will then change, I guess, the all-in sustaining cost from a unit cost point of view. In terms of capital, it's very much around attacking this flow sheet because that's where the majority of the capital sits. As I said, the mine, although it's bigger, we'll still manage that through a startup pit, going to a staged development to the mine life. I don't expect the pre-strip capital to really move too much. On the process side, it's about reducing the crushing, reducing the coarse ore bin, getting rid of the filtration, getting rid of the detox circuit, downsizing the mineral crow, all of those aspects should reduce the capital.
What I'm hoping to do is to, as a minimum, offset, I guess, the increase in prices due to inflation over the period because, I mean, obviously, the last study was 2021, and I'm sure that prices have increased since then.
Lachlan, I think shareholders are very happy. You've covered off pretty comprehensively a lot of the areas for the Paris Project and Investigator Resources and the strategy going forward. Thank you for your presentation here today. Thank you for everybody who's joined us. If there are any other further questions, and there were some great ones today, please email them into Peter at mwrcommunication.com.au, and I'll see that Lachlan gets them and he can reply to you. We've got Investor Hub within the platform now, which is an area where Lachlan can directly engage with shareholder questions, and we'll be making sure more videos are going through there too. Thank you for your attention today. Thank you, Lachlan, for your presentation, and we'll look forward to seeing you again soon.
Yeah, thanks, everybody. Appreciate your time, and thanks, Peter, for sitting down.