In just a few moments. Just letting everyone enter as they need to. A lot of interest in today's webinar. I think most people are almost in, and we'll get underway. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining today's webinar. Today, we're joined by Larvotto Resources Managing Director, Ron Heeks, to discuss the company's announcement to acquire Hammer Metals released to the ASX yesterday. The presentation you'll see today is a modified version of the transaction presentation that was released yesterday and can be found on Larvotto's website. Ron will take investors through the strategic rationale for the acquisition, why the timing is right with Hillgrove approaching production in coming weeks, and how the transaction creates value for both Larvotto and Hammer shareholders. Just to note, all attendees are in listen-only mode.
A recording of the webinar will be loaded onto Larvotto's YouTube and website following the conclusion of the webinar. Ron, I'll hand over to you to take us through the presentation.
Thanks, Andrew, and thanks everybody for joining us to get a bit more detail on what we're thinking and how we're planning. I'll start off basically talking through why the transaction has gone ahead. Take note of the disclaimer, obviously, on the way through. We really do see this as a tactical and strategic acquisition. As existing shareholders already know, we've been around the Mount Isa area since we listed. We've always been strong copper bulls. We like the fact that there's a processing facility nearby and only sort of 40 km away, very handy. That's a facility that is always looking for more feed. We'll be happy to provide that. We've got 1,000 sq km of ground with some more advanced projects, but essentially, more grassrootsy.
Although we are doing a due diligence on the Blockade mine, which did supply Mount Isa back from the 1950s and 1960s. We'll be finalizing that transaction shortly, and we'll let people know about that when that happens. We've just finished due diligence drilling there, and results are still coming in, but looking quite interesting. To add to that, we thought, what do we do to move forward with more near production targets in the short term to save a lot of time and a lot of money, so that we can get in production with our assets up there? Hammer Metals make a lot of sense from where we were. They're directly south of where we are. We're on the north side of the road, they're on the south side of the road.
There's huge synergies in where we are. We're on, the stations are the same and all that sort of stuff. We can run both projects from the same place. A lot of synergy there. We saw the asset as good value for money, but also at a perfect point for where we like to get in. That's an advanced project. There's 500,000 tons of copper equivalent in the area. There's some projects that can be bought online in the nearer term. Obviously, a lot more work to be done, but you can see that there's an obvious path forward there. It perfectly sits where we are at the moment. Of course, we've got a very big East Coast presence now with the Hillgrove mine coming on, and we've got a lot of expertise associated with that project that we can use on this.
It really is the perfect time for us to move. Copper at an all-time Australian high. I don't think there's anybody on the planet that sees copper going backwards with all the AI and data center type stuff coming through. The copper demand from everybody is saying that there's going to be a shortfall. It makes sense to have near-term production. The big South American mines will take forever to come on, whereas we're in a very short time space to move into an area that has high growth. We see it as a very strategic acquisition from that point. We've now got something like 4,500 sq km of ground, which is a massive platform that we have to assess and move forward on. As I say, with those advanced projects.
Looking at that, we've also got Hillgrove coming on, and we'll talk about this a little bit later, but it's six weeks away from commissioning. That will provide ongoing funding to move this project forward. Even though Hillgrove, we moved it into production essentially two years from when we acquired it. That was as fast as I've ever seen it done. That's why we're into this asset on the copper side, because it will take a while, and we want to see that synergy. We don't want a huge break between bringing on our next project. It makes sense to run both of these at the same time and use one to drive the other. There's a lot of synergies between this whole thing. We also had some funding come in from Glencore.
Strictly, we didn't need that, but they were very keen to show strength, and we were very keen to partner with Glencore. We've also done that on our gold offtake from Hillgrove, which was released the other day. It couldn't be a better partner considering that they're the operator and owner of the Mount Isa facility, where we see most of this material going. The fact that we got support from them and we got it in an over market priced placement. You don't hear of that very often. In fact, I don't think I've actually ever seen it done. I've heard of it, but I've never seen it done.
For them to come in at above the current price, to show support is just exceptional. We do look forward to working with Glencore and really building the asset strength up in this part of the world. That puts us in a unique position that apart from the antimony and tungsten that's coming out of Hillgrove and of course supported by gold, is that we'll have the copper from Mount Isa. Also, one of the deposits with moly and rhenium in there for something totally different. That really does set us up as a significant precious metals company on the east coast of Australia with a lot of tie-in between all the projects and the team that we've got. It really is quite unique and we look forward to it.
The fact that we did it, without hitting our cash flow in any way, is also excellent. Thanks, Andrew. A bit more detail on the transaction itself. It was valued at AUD 54 million, which was a good uplift from Hammer's price. The Hammer shareholders, we'd like to think, should be fairly happy with this. They're getting a significant premium to where they were trading, but also that they get to move into a company that has very good liquidity, instead of the rather subdued liquidity that was in Hammer. They've got the ability to trade, which is what people like to do. We see it as a win-win for everybody on this. We get a project we can move forward on, they've also got access to that project as well.
The deal is one of our shares for 22 Hammer shares that is tied in with the Glencore placement at AUD 1.53. I think we're currently trading at about AUD 1.20 or something. It's been a fairly brutal week for the market, as everybody knows. That gives us 530,000 tonnes of copper equivalent and 1.7 million ounces of gold equivalent at 7.4, which is a wonderful grade to move forward with. We're looking in a pretty good position here and we do see significant uplift on these numbers in the very near future. Thanks, Andrew. Again, zooming in a little bit, you can see the land holding there, really highlighted by the fact that you've got Mount Isa on one side of that photo, the image and Cloncurry on the other.
It would take you about three hours to drive from one end of this project to the other, extremely large project, 4,500 km. We'll assess all of this quickly. We'll pick the eyes out of it to move forward on it. Certainly Blockade, Jubilee and Kalman is really the big prize sitting in there. It's the big one. It needs more work, but it really does show potential and we look forward to moving that into feasibility, as fast as we possibly can. Fascinating area, surrounded by world-class operations. Huge facility at Mount Isa that's hungry, looking for product, hence the support from Glencore. Don't see any negatives in what's going on here, close to town. Lot to do, obviously. Our team, certainly the Perth team, are moving on this now.
We're going to have people on the ground within the next couple of days, make the best of the rest of the dry season. It's going to be a very active area. We'll build up the team up there obviously, this with the funding from Glencore, that will allow for an unbelievably aggressive exploration program building up. Then of course there will be further funding available from Hillgrove when it comes online in a few weeks. We're not seeing too many negatives in this. We think it was a good buy at a very good time. This area does need amalgamation, and that's happening. The support from Glencore signifies that that's in their mind as well. We only see positives. Thanks, Andrew. Glencore themselves, you can see Mount Isa with their facility there. We talked about the deal.
They've come in for AUD 15 million at a premium, unheard of. Just incredible support and we thank them for that. As we say, we're already doing business with them out of Hillgrove, along with Wogen, who have our antimony concentrate. Looking forward to really advancing the area up there. There's a lot of work and a lot of areas, and a lot of upside for Mount Isa, a lot of upside. You've got spectacular government support up there, them having just put AUD 600 million into the area. New power line, going up through the area that was announced yesterday. It really is an area of growth and it's the optimal time to make that happen and move fast. That's really what it's all about, and I think we've demonstrated that we have that ability. Thanks, Andrew. Let's talk a little bit about Hillgrove.
People do get concerned that we're losing focus, this, that, and the other. Hillgrove is now pretty well self-sufficient. The management team from Perth that helped set it up is now really in an overview capacity. We have everybody on site. We have a very significant exploration team on site as well, plus the mine geology team, the mining engineering team. The build is going exceptionally well. We're about six weeks away now from commissioning. That means that we're exactly on time and on budget. It's not often that you hear of that these days, we're very happy that after 12 months, we're hitting this nearly to the day of when we said we would. That's a great thing. Ore's going up on the pad. It couldn't be going better.
I was out on site the other week and really, any problems that I've got are very, very minor. It was a tricky build because a lot of the equipment we had was actually coming from Italy, filter presses and other equipment coming from various parts of the world. To have a war going on in the middle of that did make life tricky. The logistics was spectacular in some places of what that meant. Instead of putting it on the boat and the boat turning up, the boat had to go around the world, in one case twice. It was a wonderful job done by the IntecIT team and our team working with them to solve all the problems that you could never, ever plan for when you start a build that popped up along the way.
To get to where we are, on time and on budget, really is exceptional. We look forward to that. We've got ore coming up on the pad. Production drilling is starting underground. We're already mining ore from development. Drilling, PYBAR are doing a great job on the development side. All the main production mining will actually be our team. Most of that is handled by us so that we can be very, very selective. We are totally focused on the grade control and dilution issues, and dilution in mining is arguably the biggest single issue. A lot of people don't really understand the implications of that, but we are 100% focused on that and maintaining the highest possible grade that we can. We're using lots of new skill sets to make that happen. To date, it's running very, very well.
As I say, we're well cashed up on this. We did have a fairly significant allowance from the monies that we raised to build this, we're looking pretty good on the cash side. Being on budget is putting us pretty well exactly where we thought we would be. One of the main drivers for moving forward so rapidly on the copper in Queensland is also the skill sets that we've built up now in this team. We do see that underground mining is really one of the places you want to be these days. It's logistically a lot easier. Permitting-wise, it's a lot easier. Particularly in areas of spectacular rainfall up north, underground makes a lot of sense. We've got a wonderful underground team here now. A big team of engineers, geologists, and other technical people working there.
Our skill sets on the underground side is increasing day by day, and we hope to be able to transfer some of these skill sets up to Queensland and also give the team here a few new challenges and expand their horizon a bit. We see it as just a positive to be able to spread the challenges around the team and benefit off the work that we've done over the last few years. Resource-wise, there'll be some great news coming out shortly. Where we're going with exploration targets. We've previously released some really good stuff on the Metz area. Look forward to more growth there. It really is coming on very, very well. That area, it's directly adjacent to where we're mining now.
Wonderful to see such good numbers coming through from that area, and the full implications of that, we'll be getting out over the next few months of what that means. Incredible upside on mine life, as I've always said about this project, but we'll start demonstrating that to people with the results coming through, particularly from the Metz area. We've still got three rigs working above ground and one underground. We'll expand that out once we get through commissioning and things settle down a bit to really push that home. We're seeing a lot on the tungsten side and just by sheer luck, we do have what was the highest grade tungsten mine in Australia on the tenement. I was underground there last time I was on site.
Hasn't been mined since 1952, but it does show the potential of the area to supply tungsten over and above what we expect to be able to produce through this plant. A lot of upside, a lot of news to come on this, and we see that just adding to the story. There's so much coming through, it's quite hard to keep up at the moment. It's going very, very well. Thanks, Andrew. Just quickly, where we've been and what we've done, I think probably most people have probably seen this slide before. We moved very, very quickly from when we acquired this, particularly doing the funding of the debt within a few weeks of the DFS being completed, which was really exceptional, and we did all of this really quite differently. It's worked out so well.
It's just been wonderful how quickly that moved things forward and you can't put a cost on what it does when you save yourself nine or 10 months to get a project moving forward, particularly when you've got an asset that you're spending money on. To get to where we've got to in such a short timeframe is just a wonderful tick for the team across the board to make this happen. They've done a spectacular job to bring it from where it was to where it is now, and we look forward to those results. Just keep on coming. We're working very closely with the New South Wales government here on many areas, news of which will come out in time. We do see a lot of upside here on the metal production side and also tungsten coming on. There's some pretty exciting things happening.
We are in an extremely unique position with the products that we've got and the timeframe that things are coming on. We are easily going to be the most significant producer to come out in antimony in more than a few years. Nobody else is even really close to having the scale and the facilities that we have here to supply the world requirements of antimony. Obviously the intergovernmental support is huge on this. This is between both state and federal, but also our federal and other governments around the world. We're continually talking to other governments. A very unusual situation for what normally happens in mining at this scale. The conversations we're having, quite amazing, and we see a lot of potential in a lot of areas to add value for the company, but also to add value for the country.
It's quite amazing how that's progressing and the speed at which it's progressing. Thanks, Andrew. Finally, three major projects now, Mount Isa, which includes ours plus the Kelman project. It will take about four months for the Hammer transaction to occur. It's a long-winded process that one goes through on a scheme, so it will work its way through. That will give us a spectacular land holding around Mount Isa, 500,000 tons of copper in resource that we'll look at moving forward. Hillgrove, such a unique ore body and such a unique location. Also our Eyre project in Western Australia that has still got a lot of work to go. It's been on the back burner because everything else has taken priority. Very interesting area as well.
Very special position to be significant landowners in three states in commodities that everybody wants at the moment and are at some of the best prices they've ever been at. Looking forward to the news coming forward. We've demonstrated continually that we're pretty aggressive about what we do and how we do it, and we look forward to moving that into our next venture, which is really Mount Isa and also expanding Hillgrove, and that will come along. Really the highlights at the end of the day, production commencing very shortly from Hillgrove. Isa, it's got a lot of work to do to get it forward, but we'll attack that as hard as we can. Good funding and support from Glencore plus our own balance sheet, so we really can go hard on these things. Cash shouldn't be a problem for us.
We've got a management team that's proved that they can do it, and we've added to that over the last two years with our Hillgrove team coming on. A huge amount of skill sets now within the company to do what we need to do. This will make us Australia's largest antimony producer and somewhere about number five in the world. We will supply more than 7% of world antimony, so it really is a world-class ore body and looking forward to moving into copper. I've always been a copper bull. I've run copper mines before and really looking forward to turning into something that can grow quite quickly just because of the unique situations that we're in at the moment and making the best of that. Early movers should do well in that area. That's about it from me.
I hope that's updated everybody on what they want. There'll be a lot more information coming out. Most of what we're seeing seems to be fairly positive so far. We look forward to that continuing and moving forward on our projects. Thank you all for attending.
Yeah. Thank you, Ron. Really well-thought-out presentation today, and we can see how much activity is going to be happening across Hillgrove and now Mount Isa, which obviously then correlates to a lot of ASX announcements as well. Shareholders will be kept up to date. Thank you to all attendees who have joined today. If you do have further questions, you can always contact the company via the details on the website or those details that are provided in the announcements. From here, we'd like to thank you for attending and wish you a good day. Thank you