Good afternoon, everyone. The last session of the last day. Resources Rising Stars have left the best to last. I want to talk to you today about an opportunity whereby we are breathing life back into two grand old dames that exist in the Northern Cape of South Africa. The standard disclaimers. Because we are breathing life back into two grand old dames, we are on the verge of execution. This becomes a very important aspect of our company as we start to hire people to make execution happen. A company snapshot. I am sure a number of you have come across the name Orion in the past. I am reasonably new to Orion, a little bit over a year.
The adage still stands for me is, "An overnight success is a long time in the making." When you look at the position Orion has, we are listed on both the ASX and the JSE. We have great support out of the JSE. It is a very good market for us, and we look forward to continued support out of the ASX. We have a fly-through here. This takes three minutes, and I trust it will kick into gear as anticipated.
Do we have any volume?
As South Africa's largest province, yet with the smallest population, the Northern Cape remains one of South Africa's most mineral-rich regions. While best known today for iron ore, manganese, zinc, and diamond mining, its copper and other base metals resources will be vital to supplying the metals needed to power tomorrow. These are gaining momentum again in the Northern Cape. Orion Minerals is leading this, guided by a clear purpose, unlocking resources through people to improve the world. We are giving new life to historic mines with proven potential. Our current portfolio includes the Prieska Copper- Zinc Mine, the Okiep Copper Project, and the Jacomynspan Project, which focuses on nickel, copper, cobalt, and platinum group elements. These projects sit within portions of the rich and underexplored Areachap Belt and the historic Okiep mining district.
The Prieska Copper- Zinc Mine is our flagship project and represents Orion's transition from explorer to producer. Its copper and zinc ore body is ranked among the world's top 30 VMS base metal deposits. Between the early 1970s and the 1990s, the mine processed 46 million tonnes of ore and produced 430,000 tonnes of copper. Orion will now develop the remaining 31 million tonnes of mineral resources containing 370,000 tonnes of copper. We are advancing to production in two integrated stages. Stage 1 focuses on delivering early, shallower production from the mine's uppers, together with dewatering. First delivery is expected within a year of financing. Stage 2 unlocks the more extensive deeps resources as dewatering and major infrastructure are completed. Planning for the uppers covers the first one to four years of mining.
As mining continues in the uppers, the deeps plan begins in year three and extends to year 13. Further underground exploration of the deeps will also continue. Five extension targets have been identified and will be evaluated by planned underground drilling. Together, our staged approach takes the mine from first production to a long-life, full-scale operation. At steady state, it will process 2.4 million tonnes of ore per year, producing 22,000 tonnes of copper and 65,000 tonnes of zinc in concentrate annually. By reawakening historic assets with modern purpose, Orion Minerals will support growth in the Northern Cape and supply the critical metals needed for the future. Orion Minerals, metals for tomorrow.
Orion has two targets in the area, two operations that we will be moving into construction and execution in the coming months. The first one focused in that video is the number one dot on the right. It is near the town of Prieska and an older settlement of Copperton, and that is our primary target or our primary asset. The second one is the Okiep asset over just to the north of Springbok. For those to understand a little bit more of the history, Prieska was operated during the 1970s and 1980s by a company called Anglovaal. There may be one or two here who are familiar with that. It was probably South Africa's most mechanized mining operation at that time. It was brought to a standstill as South Africa moved into transition of independence and the uncertainty that that created. However, it is not remnant mining.
It is brand-new, virgin ore at the depth of the lower portions of the deposit. Okiep by comparison, that is the birthplace of copper in southern Africa. Copper was first discovered there in the mid-1650s, with first production coming out of that area in the 1850s. Since that time, 150 years, some 2 million tonnes of copper metal have come out of the Okiep region. Famous companies such as Newmont and Gold Fields have operated there. We have a very large tenement holding there, and I will come back to that as part of our BHP Xplor. The large yellow ellipse indicates a very significant part of our priority. Three priorities. The Prieska operation, the simple details there for you.
The second priority is the Okiep project, and the third priority is to develop and expand on the BHP Xplor program, which we have been part of during the course of this year. Simple timelines with all of those. Number one, Prieska. It has an uppers construction and a nominal quarter of a million tonne production rate. From the time of finalizing funding to production is 13 months. That will produce a bulk concentrate whilst we are finishing off dewatering of the main ore body, reestablishing ore handling at the base of the shaft. Then we move into production at a rate of 2.4 million tonnes per annum. A proper production rate. Okiep is an optimization at the moment. This information is all on our website. Fundamentally, we have determined that we need to optimize that somewhat more from its DFS.
However, it does show that there is a likelihood of production out of Okiep before production from the deeps in Prieska. The last agenda is our exploration portfolio in the some 3,500 sq km of tenements that we own in the Prieska and Okiep region. We are busily engaging to ensure that that comes to fruition and forms the third leg of our priority. The optimization for Okiep stands out. This is the global cost curve. Prieska, because of its by-product credit, sits comfortably in the lowest quartile of copper producers. Prieska is copper- zinc. Okiep is a pure sweet copper concentrate. For a number of reasons, we have been in the process of optimizing that. While there's no public information at the moment, I can assure you that the optimization is proceeding as one would anticipate.
What does Prieska look like from a facts and figures perspective? There you have it. The first four years, the uppers produce about 70,000 tonnes of bulk concentrate. The deeps will produce almost 1 million tonnes of copper con and 1.25 million tonnes of zinc con. One of the important metrics there that sets Prieska aside is the capital intensity. Our capital intensity is far less than a number of other copper opportunities that exist around the planet. If you're talking about a large-scale porphyry, low grade, that capital intensity will go up significantly. The main thing for us has been finalizing a funding package with Glencore. We have entered into a prepayment and offtake agreement with Glencore. Glencore are providing us in three tranches, $250 million U.S. , that will allow us to move into production.
They receive the marketing of our bulk concentrate and our copper and our zinc concentrate. That arrangement goes for some 10 years with an option on top of that. I would like to say that our relationship with Glencore in finalizing this agreement has been very good. Easy, pragmatic, and simple to deal with. However, when we play in the junior space, it is juniors are always in a hurry. The majors are more considered. We are nearing the end of that, and we'll look to be into production or construction then production in the very near future per the timelines I showed you previously. Prieska looks like this. The main prize is the yellow and blue at the base. 2.6 km of VMS open at both ends and at depth. We have five targets with the primary two because of grade being T1 and T2.
You can have an indication there of some of the intersects and what we need to do for further resource definition and extension on the targets. The Flat Mines. Once again, similar numbers, but when you pay attention to the NPV and the IRR, you can see why we and the board adopted a optimization approach. Capital intensity similar to Prieska, slightly higher. It is a smaller deposit and the Okiep operation is such that we need to mine two or three ore bodies at the one time through a central facility. However, we do have indications of excellent grade and the optimization has been about reducing capital and bringing grade forward. That's what the startup looks like. If you read some of the reported drill holes, there's some fairly pleasing results. 50 meters of 5% copper, 60 meters of 3% copper.
The ore bodies in Okiep are somewhat chimney-like, and they go down and as you go down in depth, the grade improves. We need to drill deeper holes. However, every time we do, we hit good grade. However, Okiep is very pleasing to us because we have within our tenements an additional, already identified, 12 deposits that are in a brownfield situation and allow us to start sequencing and prioritizing those deposits. BHP Xplor. We are very pleased to be selected as one of the cohorts. There are six mining companies, five technology companies this year, out of a list of 780- odd. We are the only company that BHP has partnered with that is existing in the EMEA region, Africa, Middle East, and Europe. The other companies are elsewhere in the world.
The whole essence of this is about understanding, and to use their words, one of the largest, most underexplored regions on the planet for copper, which exists in the area between South Africa, Namibia and across into Botswana. Our work has been very heavily focused on identifying targets. Why invest in Orion? We have a flagship asset that is ready to run. Finalize our financing and we are into construction. Okiep provides near-term growth and the exploration pipeline is real for Orion. It is a historical benchmark. We have new and experienced leadership and it will be a low-cost producer. Thank you.