Let's give it one or two more minutes, Lachlan. Okay, we'll get started. Good morning. My name is Cameron Gilenko from Sodali & Co, and I'd like to welcome you to the Investigator Silver Investor Webinar. Today, IVR Managing Director Lachlan Wallace will provide a detailed update on the path forward for the Paris Silver Project following delivery of the highly impressive DFS and completion of the AUD 55 million placement. During the webinar, we invite you to submit your questions using the chat function by clicking the speech bubble icon in the bottom right corner of your screen. We'll collect these questions throughout the session and address as many as possible towards the end of the webinar. I'll now pass over to Lachlan to run through the presentation.
Thanks, Cam, and thanks everybody for joining today. What I want to do today is walk through the Definitive Feasibility Study for the Paris Silver Project. Not just the headline outcomes, but what actually sits behind them and how we move from here into development. This is the first opportunity to step through the DFS in detail since we released it on the February 27th, so I'll take the time to explain how the project works, what drives the economics, and why we believe that this project's a project that can be built. At a high level, Paris is a high margin primary silver development project located in South Australia. The DFS confirms a combination of strong economics, low technical complexity and a clear pathway to development.
Importantly, this is a primary silver project producing silver doré bars, which is relatively rare globally, with most silver being produced as a by-product of other metal mining, meaning that Paris provides direct leverage to the silver price. The project is underpinned by a shallow high-grade ore body, which is well-suited for low-cost bulk open pit mining. The mine plan is staged to bring high-grade ore forward in the plan, leading to strong early cash flows. Silver is extracted through a conventional and proven processing route, and silver doré sold directly to bullion dealers such as Perth Mint or ABC Bullion. It's a very simple low complexity project. In addition, the project sits within a broader 15 km mineralized corridor, providing clear potential for future growth beyond the initial mine plan.
What we have here is not just a strong development project, but one that combines margin, simplicity and scalability. Before getting into the DFS itself, I just want to briefly touch on the silver market because ultimately that's what underpins the value of the project. Despite recent volatility, including geopolitical events such as the conflict in Iran, which has created a more risk adverse backdrop, the underlying fundamentals for silver remain unchanged. We continue to see a structural deficit driven by strong and growing industrial demand, particularly as the global economy continues to decarbonize through electrification. On the supply side, more than 70% of global silver production is as a by-product, which means that supply is largely price inelastic. It doesn't respond quickly to higher prices.
In addition, a significant portion of global supply is concentrated in jurisdictions such as Latin America, Russia and China, where disruption risk is inherently higher. By contrast, there are very few primary silver operations that are working in Tier -1 jurisdictions. When we take a step back, the dynamic is relatively clear. We've got strong structural demand, constrained and inelastic supply, and limited new sources of primary silver coming through. It's into that backdrop that we're advancing the Paris Silver Project, which provides direct and unhedged exposure to the silver price. Turning now to the DFS outcomes. This slide summarizes the headline pre-tax ungeared economics for the project under both long-term consensus as well as spot pricing at the time of the DFS release. Consensus pricing around $60 an ounce.
The project delivered a pre-tax NPV of approximately AUD 618 million, an IRR of 61% and payback of around 13 months. At spot pricing, which is around $80 per ounce, that strengthens to an NPV of approximately AUD 1.2 billion, an IRR of 93% and payback of around 11 months. Over the life of mine, the project generates approximately AUD 1.9 billion of free cash flow, with strong operating cash margins of 64% at spot and 52% at consensus pricing. The break-even silver price, including capital repayment, is around $37 an ounce, so AUD 28 or thereabouts, which highlights the margin built into the project. Importantly, the project is highly leveraged to silver.
Every $1 increase in price adds about AUD 27 million NPV and AUD 42 million to life of project free cash flow, which really highlights the leverage of a pure silver project. The key point is that Paris delivers strong margin and rapid payback of relatively modest development capital, both of which support a financeable development profile. Now I just want to step through, I guess, the core elements of the project that underpin the economics I've just been through. At the heart of it is simplicity. A shallow, high grade, open pit with conventional processing and low technical risk. The mine plan is deliberately staged to bring forward higher grade, low strip material in the early years, which really drives the early cash flow and the rapid payback. Layered over that is the stockpile strategy, which provides both operational flexibility and downside protection through the ramp-up period.
The project has already also been deliberately sized and sequenced to support financing with strong margins, relatively modest capital development, and robust metrics under stress case conditions, which I'll work through as we go through the slide deck. Importantly, the DFS itself is a conservative base case rather than optimized stretch case, so there is clear scope to improve cost and execution outcomes as we move towards the final investment decision or FID. Finally, from a practical delivery perspective, the project benefits from being close to the major mining hubs of Whyalla and Port Augusta in South Australia, which provides access to skilled labor, mining contractors, equipment, and support services. Taken together, these are the core features that underpin both the economics of the project and its delivery pathway.
I'll now step through how those elements are reflected in the mine plan and operating strategy and how they'll translate into the DFS outcomes. The stage mining strategy is an important driver of value in the DFS, but probably worth noting that it's nothing novel. All well-designed mines look to stage capital, bring forward higher grade ore where they can, and defer lower margin material to later periods. It's simply good mine planning because it reduces the upfront capital intensity, improves NPV and strengthens the financial metrics during the debt repayment period. Our project is no different. What is attractive about Paris is that the ore body geometry lends itself particularly well to that approach. It's a shallow, tabular, flat-lying ore body, which enables a straightforward, shallow open pit. It's only 175 m at its deepest point.
Basically a glorified quarry, which means simple mining and low geotechnical risk. Ore is encountered only 10 m down, and it's only a few months until there's over 300,000 tons of ore on ROM and processing then can commence. The mine plan is deliberately sequenced to access the higher grade, low strip material early. Whilst the stage mining is standard, I guess, mine design practice, Paris is particularly well-suited to it, and it's one of the key reasons why the project delivers such strong early cash flows and rapid payback, as well as, which support obviously the financing metrics. This slide just shows how the stage mining approach actually plays out operationally.
In the left-hand graph, it shows that the first two years we operate a dual fleet mining configuration, which allows us to feed both the plant and continue to open up the pit at the same time. This is what enables us to bring that higher grade material forward in the schedule, which is reflected in the early head grades and production profile that you can see on the graph. As a result, head grades average around 130 g per ton silver over the first two years of processing, compared to a life of mine average about 91 g a ton. That supports an average production about 4.7 million oz in the first couple of years before normalizing to about 3.7 million oz throughout the middle of the mine life.
Now, one outcome of that approach is we actually build some quite large ore stockpiles early in the operation. That's illustrated on the graph on the right-hand side. Building stockpiles is not the objective in itself, it's simply a consequence of accelerating mining early in the mine schedule to access the higher grade ore. While stockpiles that are large can sometimes be viewed negatively as an inventory holding cost, in practice, they actually provide a very important operational benefit. Mining inherently is variable, and over the course of a 10+ year mine life, we will encounter some unplanned events. Absolutely guaranteed. Whether that's wall conditions, grade reconciliation, equipment availability, water ingress, or some other event, what large ore stockpiles allow us to do is to maintain consistent plant feed without compromising how we mine the pit.
In other words, we do not need to drop in to mine out of sequence or drop into the next bench early to chase ore or undertake suboptimal mining practices, all of which increase cost, dilute ore body and ultimately destroy value just to keep the mill full. Hence, the mining team can stay focused on efficient pit development, dilution control and long-term value, rather than reacting to short-term feed pressure. Importantly, that resilience is also very tangible in dollar terms. By the end of the first year of processing, the low-grade stockpiles are forecast to contain about 1.3 million oz of recoverable payable silver, which equates to about AUD 120 million of net realizable value after accounting for processing and selling costs.
Over time, that net realizable value of stockpiles grows to a peak of almost AUD 500 million, and it's a serious asset. Whilst building the large ore stocks is not a primary design strategy, it is a very useful outcome of the mine plan, providing operational flexibility, real balance sheet resilience in terms of in dollar terms, and helping protect value through the inevitable variability that comes with mining. On processing, the important point is that this is a very conventional primary silver flow sheet. The plant is designed around crushing, grinding, whole of ore cyanide leach and Merrill-Crowe recovery to produce silver doré. It is a well-established, low technical risk recovery route using standard off-the-shelf equipment, and it does not rely on any novel processing technology. The broader design philosophy is one of simplicity, operability, reliability and ramp-up certainty.
This type of flow sheet is not common in Australia because we don't have primary silver mines of scale producing doré. Silver in Australia is generally produced as a by-product of lead, zinc, copper and gold. It generally pours through a concentrate rather than a doré, like a silver bar. Globally, however, this is the standard recovery for primary silver operations. For, I guess, our Australian audience, the easiest comparison is like a gold carbon and leach, CIL. The front end is very similar, so crush, grind, cyanide leach. The key difference is in how the dissolved metal is recovered from solution. In a gold CIL circuit, gold is absorbed onto carbon, whereas in the Merrill-Crowe silver circuit, the pregnant solution is clarified and then dissolved precious metals are recovered by zinc cementation.
Very similar, as I said, very standard for primary silver mines all around the world. The other important point, I guess, on this slide is plant scale. The process plant is sized at 1.5 million tons per annum, and that was a deliberate financing decision, not an NPV maximization exercise. In late 2025, after optimizing the pit at conservative silver price of about $48 an ounce, we built a series of development cases between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 tons and stress tested those cash flows through a lender lens. We ran downside cases which assumed lower grade, lower price, higher capital and higher operating costs, and tested whether the project could still satisfy traditional project finance metrics such as debt service cover ratios, as well as the reserve tail.
What it showed was that the cases between about 1.25 and 1.7 million tons per annum all met the traditional financing metrics, and we selected 1.5 million tons per annum as the most robust midpoint. Project sizing was never about selecting the throughput that delivered the absolute maximum NPV on paper. I'm sure that a 2,000,000 ton per annum case definitely would have had a higher NPV than what we report in the DFS. This was really about selecting a development case that we can finance and build with confidence. In my view, that's ultimately what delivers best shareholder value, is selecting the project configuration with the clearest pathway into financing, construction, and ultimately production. More broadly, that same philosophy was applied across the entire DFS design basis.
The objective at this stage was not to spend a whole heap of additional time trying to optimize every single line item before releasing the study. It was really to update the 2021 pre-feasibility study, which was completed obviously at a much lower silver price, about $22, and to demonstrate that Paris is now a clearly financeable development project. Now, we've done that with the DFS. Even with the conservative assumptions we've built into the DFS, the project delivers strong margins, rapid payback, and a funding profile that supports project finance. Next 12 months ahead of FID are about taking the financeable base case and improving it further as we work through execution readiness, permitting, and debt discussions.
I was particularly keen to ensure that the key assumptions in the DFS could withstand lender scrutiny, and that's why in a number of areas we've deliberately built in conservatism as well as optionality. Now, a good example of this is the tailings storage facility or the TSF. The initial DFS design provides about 20 million tons of tailings storage capacity against the current life of mine requirement of 13 million tons. From day one, we're already building in more than four years of additional tailings storage capacity. Importantly, the TSF crests are designed as a mine-built haul road. It's around 30 m wide, rather than a traditional engineering approach, which you see a crest of, say, 5 m or 6 m width. The wider crest just makes it a very robust platform for future stage raises beyond the initial 20 million tons.
For every 1 m lift equivalent, it's basically equivalent to about a year's worth of storage. There's ample storage capacity from an engineering point of view for a long extension to the Paris mine life beyond the initial 10-year mine plan plus, you know, the four years of built capacity that we already have in the TSF design. This matters because at current silver prices, there's already about 6,000,000 tons of lower grade material in addition to the current DFS case that doesn't make margin at the optimized $48 per ounce, but it does make margin at current spot pricing. If the price remains higher, we'll bring that material into a future mine plan, and we already have the tailings capacity to accommodate it.
Beyond that, I would expect the mine life to extend at least to some degree through pit expansion drilling around the current reserve envelope, which I'll talk to in a subsequent slide. Beyond the pit itself, the broader 15 km Paris Silver Corridor also creates the potential for future satellite feed. The TSF is not just conservatively designed, it's deliberately giving us room to grow without creating, I guess, an early infrastructure bottleneck. The same philosophy carries out through other areas, some of which I can just touch on quickly. On power, the DFS adopts basically a plug-and-play diesel solution. It's not necessarily the lowest cost outcome, but it's conservative and bankable from a delivery perspective. During the FEED, like the detailed engineering, we will test alternate lower cost power options, including third-party power provision.
Similar in the camp, the DFS assumes a new 250-person camp, even though the steady-state operating requirement is closer to 160 people. This 250 is really to accommodate the short period of time where the workforce swells during construction. This is a really conservative but defensible position for banks as we talk to them about project finance. In execution, we'll actually meet that peak construction requirement with lower cost modular or second-hand solutions. With the roads, we've assumed imported road base from Kimba, which again, is a defensible assumption, but, you know, quite expensive. There are local quarry sources that have been identified within the tenement subject to approvals that could materially reduce those costs as well as logistics. A number of similar examples.
I guess the point of this slide is not that the DFS, you know, needs optimization work to actually work, it already does work. The point is that we now have a project that's financeable today with conservatism and embedded optionality in key areas, and we can advance the financing discussions while we continue to improve the project ahead of that final investment decision. Turning now firstly to operating costs. The headline, all-in sustaining cost is approximately AUD 39.70 an ounce, so around that $28 . This supports strong margins even under conservative pricing assumptions. More important than the absolute number is how those costs are structured. It's a very simple conventional cost base, contract mining, straightforward processing plant, standard reagents and inputs.
There are no complex, metallurgical steps, no concentrate handling, no exposure to, smelter returns. That simplicity translates directly into cost predictability and operational reliability. The other important point is that costs are largely driven on a per ton basis, not per ounce, and what that means is the key driver of margin is grade. In the early years, we're bringing forward that high-grade material. The unit cost per ounce are low and margins are very strong. As the mine progresses, the grade normalizes, processing G&A costs increase on a per ounce basis, as you would expect. That is, however, partially offset by a reduction in mining costs as we transition from a dual fleet to a single fleet and then into a quite low-cost rehandle phase.
The net effect of this is a relatively stable and healthy profit profile or margin profile across the life of the operation. Importantly, the DFS cost base is also conservative, consistent with the approach outlined on the previous slide. One practical example of that is the rehandle. In the final 30 months of the mine plan, the DFS assumes that all stockpile material is rehandled back to the ROM and then picked up again by a loader and fed into the crusher, effectively a double-handling scenario. In practice, we'll implement direct tipping from the stockpiles to the crusher, which will reduce both cost as well as handling inefficiency, and just another example of the conservatism that's been built into the underlying plan. I guess the key takeaway is that this isn't a complex or fragile cost structure.
It's a simple, predictable operating base with strong leverage to grade and a clear potential for improvement. From a capital point of view, the key number here is the development funding requirement of approximately AUD 260 million or about $180 million. It's important to understand that this is not just process plant capital, it's a fully loaded number that includes, mining pre-strip and mobilization, the process plant, all site infrastructure, including power, water, tailings, indirect costs, contingency, and the working capital through to steady state operations. This reflects the maximum funding requirement to bring the project into production and is the number that the lenders will really focus on. The project itself is simple from a capital perspective.
As I said before, it's shallow open pit, conventional processing plant, no requirement for complex infrastructure or concentrate handling, and that simplicity translates directly into capital efficiency and reduces the execution risk. Importantly, as we've discussed, a number of the capital items have been approached conservatively. We've talked about the plug-and-play power, the camp, conservative road, oversized TSF. While the capital number is robust and financeable, there is clear scope to optimize a number of components as we move into FEED, the detailed engineering, as well as into execution. When you look at the capital requirement in the context of project economics, it actually remains modest relative to value. At spot pricing, the project delivers an NPV of approximately AUD 1.15 billion, which is equivalent to an NPV to capital ratio of over 4x . Really, really strong.
Combined with rapid payback and strong margins, this is what really underpins the financeability of the project. Key takeaway is that this is not a capital-intensive or complex development. It's a relatively simple, fully scoped project with a clear and achievable funding pathway and embedded opportunities for optimization. It really covers the technical and economic foundations of the project, how it's going to be mined, how it's going to be processed, and what drives the cost and capital profile. This next section is really focused on delivery, how we take a completed DFS and move the project through permitting, financing into construction. The real key elements of that are the permitting pathway, execution readiness. This includes engineering as well as some early works and preparation for project financing.
What I'm just going to step through in this section is how each of those is being progressed and how they come together to support a clear pathway to development. First, permitting. This slide matters because permitting is where, you know, otherwise good projects can often get bogged down, and Paris is really well-positioned in that regard. First, just draw your attention to the photo. This is the location of the pit. It's flat, dry, relatively barren country with no meaningful competing land use. The groundwater is highly saline, not suitable for livestock, so many of the shared use conflicts that can delay projects simply do not exist here. Second, we are operating in very mining-friendly jurisdiction in South Australia, where the resources sector contributes roughly one in AUD 15 of gross state product.
Importantly, I'm very familiar with the permitting system here, having previously permitted and delivered one of South Australia's most recent mines that came into underground copper operation just out of Adelaide from early stage exploration into production on time and as planned. That track record does matter. The regulators commit significant time and resources to a permitting process, and they want to have confidence that the proponent will execute and that the project will be built and deliver the economic outcomes for the state. In terms of approach, we've engaged really proactively with government. I've been meeting with the regulators regularly to work through the approvals pathway, and the environmental studies are now being completed to an agreed scope so that we deliver exactly what is required, avoiding rework and delays later in the process. The engagement has been really constructive.
Regulators have been responsive, pragmatic, solutions-focused, which is consistent with South Australia's reputation as a strong mining jurisdiction. That was also reflected in the latest Fraser Institute rankings that came out only last month, where South Australia ranked number one globally for mineral potential and number four globally, number onr in Australia for mining investment attractiveness. In parallel, we have a well-established relationship with our traditional owners, built over more than 13 years of respectful engagement. We've completed five formal heritage surveys, identified areas of cultural significance, and incorporated those learnings into the project design. Taking that approach, like designing consultation with our traditional owner partners, reduces the risk of rework, supports a smoother approvals process, and ultimately leads to better outcomes for all parties.
In parallel, we are actively working towards a Native Title agreement for the mining development so that the broader framework for project access and long-term development is progressed alongside the permitting work stream. In terms of timing, we're targeting submission of the mining lease application in mid-2026, around July, with approvals largely wrapped up in the second half of calendar year 2027. With the DFS complete, the focus now shifts to delivery. The first stage is execution readiness, so taking the project from a completed study into something that is ready to build. Importantly, we are well-funded into this stage, having recently raised AUD 55 million, AUD 13 million of which is subject to shareholder approval in April. This allows us to move immediately into the work required to progress towards development. That funding is being deployed across a number of key areas.
First is detailed engineering. As we progress from the DFS level, design into FEED and execution level engineering, we have a focus on constructability, equipment selection, and refining the capital and operating cost base. In parallel, we're advancing long lead procurement planning, so items such as the grinding mill, the MCCs, switchgear, they all sit on the critical path for project delivery. Early engagement and planning around these packages is important to avoid schedule delays, once that final investment decision is taken. We're also looking to bring forward elements of pre-FID construction, so particularly around non-processing infrastructure such as camp and the site access road.
The objective there is to ensure that when we do take that final investment decision, we're not starting from a standing start, but we're already mobilized and able to move directly into construction, effectively bringing forward that first silver production. In parallel with that, we are preparing for project financing, so that includes the technical and commercial work streams required for debt due diligence, including data room prep, lender engagement, and third-party reviews. In terms of funding structure, we're targeting a conventional project financing approach. We're assessing a range of debt instruments that will include traditional project debt, potential offtake-linked finance, and vendor financing to fund the majority of the remaining development capital.
At this stage, working toward a moderately levered outcome, so broadly in the order of, you know, 70% debt, 30% equity, although that will ultimately be refined through the financing process. Importantly, the work we're doing now across engineering, technical studies, and project definition is all aligned to support that process and position the project to secure debt effectively. The key point is that these work streams are not sequential. They're being progressed in parallel. We're advancing the engineering, permitting, and financial preparation at the same time, so the project is positioned to move efficiently from DFS through to FID and into construction. Importantly, the funding that we have in place today is what enables us to do that, to actively de-risk the project and bring forward the pathway to irst silver production.
A key part of that execution readiness, particularly from a lender perspective, is increasing confidence in the early years of the mine plan. The current geological model is already well-defined with drilling on approximately 25 m spacing, and the resource model that we've used in the DFS really honors the raw drilling data quite well. Despite this, I'm quite keen to increase the geological confidence to an operational, so a grade control level, in areas that matter most for financing. What we're targeting is a step change in data density across the initial years of the pit, effectively moving from a resource definition drilling to a grade control level spacing ahead of mining. In practical terms, for every existing drill hole in those early mining areas, we're looking to add approximately three more drill holes, significantly increasing the density of information.
The objective here is to reduce uncertainty around grade, tonnage, and continuity in the early years of production, because these are the areas that will underpin the debt repayment. From a lender perspective, this directly reduces the perceived risk, and that typically will translate into better financing outcomes, whether it's in terms of structure, pricing, or overall flexibility. This program is not about changing the project, it's about de-risking the delivery of the existing plan, particularly through the critical years or early years of operation. Beyond the DFS, there is meaningful exploration upside. First, mine life expansion. Now, I don't really consider this to be exploration. It's more resource conversion from low confidence inferred to a higher degree of geological certainty.
The current pit optimization, which is the pit design you can see on the screen there, is already pushing to the north, to the east, and to the south, into areas that are inferred. They're shown in blue on this image. Now, we've deliberately excluded those areas from the DFS mine plan, not because the mineralization isn't there, but because we wanted to maintain discipline and where possible, only include higher confidence material. As we convert those areas through drilling, so the blue areas, we'll revisit the pit design with a view to expanding the mineable inventory, and that has potential to increase both mine life as well as overall project value without requiring additional infrastructure, particularly given the TSF capacity that I spoke about earlier.
Stepping back more broadly, Paris sits within a mineralized corridor of more than 15 km in strike length, and we already have some strong intercepts outside of the current pit area, both the north and the south. The strategy here is really to identify satellite deposits that can feed the central processing plant. The infrastructure we're building, the plant, TSF, site services, are all designed to support that hub-and-spoke model. While Paris is a cornerstone, the broader opportunity is this district-scale Paris Silver Corridor. The intercepts we have are quite compelling. At the north, at Apollo, 8 m, 1,260 g a tonne. Manto about 5 km to the south, 3 m, 86 g a tonne. A host of silver intercepts all throughout the corridor. This is not a single deposit. It's a broader mineralized system with clear potential for growth.
Within that corridor sits Athena, around 11 km to the southeast on an area that we're earning into with our neighbors, Alliance Resources. This is a particularly interesting target. Historically, Athena was drilled for iron ore, and many of the holes were stopped once they passed through the magnetite body. After Paris was discovered, the holes were re-assayed, and it was discovered that many of those holes passed through or terminated in silver mineralization. Had some really strong results, including 20 m at 160 g per tonne, including 5 m at almost 500 g per tonne, and a nice separate intercept of 7 m at 111 g per tonne. Importantly, though, the geophysics indicate that alongside the known mineralized body, which outcrops, there's actually a second adjacent target below the surface with a similar magnetic signature that's never been drilled.
At Athena, we're not just dealing with an underexplored system. We potentially have multiple bodies, one partially defined and one completely untested. Last year, we completed a gravity survey to better understand the geometry and scale of the system, and that data will guide the first ever dedicated silver drilling program at Athena in 2026. I guess if successful, Athena could become a natural satellite to Paris, adding both scale and mine life. Proximal to Paris, we also have, you know, Morgans Complex, a prospective silver area where early drilling by Investigator returned shallow intersections of silver and zinc mineralization, including 12 m at 240 g per tonne silver.
Late last year, we completed a first pass soil program at Eurilla Hill, targeting regional IOCG potential, as well as gravity survey over key targets at Corunna. Importantly, you know, Morgans sits around 80 km of the proposed Paris plant location. Over time, it could potentially form part of our broader regional hub-and-spoke strategy, leveraging the sunk processing and infrastructure capital at Paris. While this is a lower priority area than Paris and the immediate corridor targets, it remains an attractive longer-term opportunity, and we expect to undertake follow-up drilling in 2026. While the Paris Corridor and Uno Morgans complex represent our silver growth opportunity, we also hold a number of gold, copper exploration targets at Curnamona in the eastern side of South Australia, not far from Broken Hill.
Curnamona is an attractive exploration target supported by a coincident magnetic gravity IP and soil anomalies, all of which point to the potential for a mineralized system of scale. We commenced an initial drilling campaign at Curnamona late last year. That program has recently been completed, although not all of the planned holes were drilled due to an unseasonably heavy rainfall. That same weather has also actually delayed our sampling with large portion of the drill samples still on site and yet to be transported for assay. We have also identified within the tenements historic workings and collected rock chip samples, which will be assessed as a part of a broader regional mapping program.
Given the initial program was cut short by weather and the crew and rig has now been mobilized to focus on Paris, our attention is to return to Curnamona later this year and complete that first pass program. In the meantime, the assay results, when they do come through from the drilling that has already been completed, may well influence how we prioritize the remaining holes and any follow-up drilling. As you can see, plenty of growth potential through exploration. In terms of timeline, the next 12 months are really focused on permitting, exploration, and execution readiness, including financing. All this is leading towards a final investment decision and construction towards the latter half of 2027, with a pathway through to first silver production in calendar year 2028. To close, Paris is a high margin finance-ready silver development project in a Tier -1 jurisdiction.
It combines strong economics, low technical risk, and a clear pathway to development. Importantly, it's been designed to be financed and built, not just studied, and from here the focus is on execution. I'd like to thank you all for your time and happy to take any questions.
Thanks, Lachie.
Great.
We can now run through any questions from the audience. We have received a couple of questions submitted ahead of the webinar. You have covered some of these questions already, Lachie, but we'll still run through them so you can provide an answer to the investors that submitted these questions. Please remember, audience, you can submit your questions using the chat function by clicking the speech bubble icon in the bottom right corner of your screen. Lachie, our first question, can you provide an update on current exploration activities and outline the expected timing for results from the sampling and drilling program?
As I said, we've mobilized drilling at Paris. Two clear priorities, I guess the first is the infill and high density drilling that I spoke about that are going to focus on the early years of the pit. They're really aimed at increasing that confidence to a grade control level and supporting the financing process. The second is a step-out drilling immediately around the pit margins, so targeting areas that currently classify as inferred with a view to converting those to a higher confidence material and potentially including them into a future mine plan. In parallel to that, we will be progressing work along the broader corridor. In terms of timing, the pads have been cleared at Paris and the drill rig mobilized on the 28th of this month, so in four days' time.
I suspect the results will come through progressively over the coming months, rather than probably as a single batch. We'll basically get that out as regular cadence to the market.
Thanks. Next question. I believe the current share price has been considered on the basis of various factors, out of which silver metal price is one of them. Given the current silver price is still higher compared to what is being considered during the pricing of shares, how long will it take to refactor the share price to cover the gap?
Yeah. Okay. Good question. I'll make a couple of points. First, I guess relative to both silver price and our peer group, we've actually outperformed. We're far from satisfied with the current share price, to be fair to say. The broader junior resources sector has come under pressure recently, particularly with the increase in geopolitical uncertainty following the conflict in Iran. That has affected all development stage companies. At the moment, the market is basically applying a fairly broad risk discount across junior developers, and we are not immune to that. Second, if you look at where the company is trading at today relative to the underlying project value, there's a clear disconnect. This is not, I guess, unusual at this stage of the cycle.
What we'll be focusing on, I guess, is things we can control, which is not the silver price, but we can control how we advance the project. We'll be focusing on the engineering, the permitting, drilling, financing, because as those work streams progress, I would expect that the, I guess, share price to value gap will close over time. As broader market risk sentiment normalizes, I'd also expect that projects like Paris, which are well-funded and actively advancing, to be rerated more on underlying value and less on the general risk aversion towards junior equities that we're seeing at the moment. Importantly, the recent capital raise means that we are really well funded to do exactly that. In hindsight, securing the funding when we did was important 'cause it allows us to keep moving forward regardless of short-term market conditions.
To put it simply, there is no way we could confidently raise the quantum of capital in the market backdrop that we see now on comparable time. The timing of the raise was strategically very important. Ultimately, the share price will affect the project as we continue to de-risk and advance it. That's where our focus will be. What we control is execution, and if we continue to deliver, then the valuation should really take care of itself.
Thanks, Lachlan. Next question's from Cameron Hutton. "Is a share consolidation on the cards before mine development?
Yeah. Look, I appreciate 2.5 billion shares on issue as a lot. It is a lot. There are no plans for share consolidation at this point in time. Our focus is really just on advancing the project and creating underlying value, and we would only consider structural changes like that if there was a clear benefit to shareholders.
Next question's from Jason McNaughton. He's asked, "Lachie, should the Paris Corridor prove additional reserves, particularly if prices move higher, how scalable is the project? How much pay above assumptions can be run without major additions?
Yeah, I guess the project has been designed with scalability in mind. The processing plant TSF and broader infrastructures can support additional feed. The hub and spoke model I've talked about allows for the satellite deposits within the corridor to utilize that central infrastructure. I guess we spoke about the TSF being deliberately oversized and designed for stage raises, so that we're not constrained from a tails perspective. In terms of the throughput, we did test a range of scenarios up to 2 ,000,000 tons per annum during the DFS work, so we understand how the project behaves at larger scale across a range of pricing scenarios, and consider 1.5 million tons to be a very robust and financiable scale. Th ere is capacity to extend the mine life, but whether we would adopt a higher throughput would remain to be seen.
Excellent. Thanks, mate. You did cover this in some detail on the presentation, but a question's come through on, "Has the South Australian Government issued all relevant approvals for the proposed project?
No, they haven't. What remains in front of us at the moment is a mine lease application. That will be submitted towards the middle of this year and suspect will be, you know, hopefully work through that permitting process by, you know, around March or early kind of next calendar year. Concurrent to that is an environmental permit called the PEPR, so that's the Program for Protection and Environmental Rehabilitation, and that will be submitted in parallel with the mine lease application assessment. We're looking to conclude that by around the third quarter of next year. They're the official sort of government-related permits that we need to put in place. In addition to that, we have the Native Title Mining Agreement, which we're currently working through.
Thanks. We've got two more questions to work through at this stage. The next one's from Bob James. "Are there any offtakes in the pipeline and preferably those offtakes providing funding?
There are no offtakes in the pipeline. I can guarantee you that if we do an offtake agreement, it'll come with funding. That's fundamental to that. In a previous life, my job was on the other side of the fence, securing material flow through financing, and securing that offtake. Yeah, we'll be looking at those opportunities. There is a market for doré as an offtake material, and we have been approached for that by some groups, and we'll seek to see what that financing or whether that forms part of the broader financing package.
The last question received is from Michael Bentley. He's asked, "Can you give us your thoughts on the biggest risks regarding the capital costs?"
Yeah. I think the biggest risk associated with capital costs is ensuring that we execute. I mean, the detailed engineering that was done by Mincore and overseen by MinAssist was done to a high degree of certainty, you know, DFS level, so ±10%-15%. The reality is that we are really ensuring that the build itself is quite light on or efficiently uses the concrete and steel as well as we can. The development or the unit cost for labor from a construction point of view is relatively high. We're talking about, you know, AUD 250-AUD 260 per hour when you include travel and camp-related costs for most skill sets out there.
I guess the more modular we can make this, then the less time we spend on site doing those expensive civil works. I think that's how we control the capital costs, the capital blowout associated with or schedule risk, as well as cost risk associated with the build.
Great. Thanks. That's all the questions we've received through the channel. On behalf of IVR, Lachlan Wallace, thank you for your time tonight. If you have any further questions, send them through to myself.