Hi everyone, and welcome to the Predictive Discovery Definitive Feasibility Study webinar. Today's webinar will be presented by PDI Managing Director Andrew Pardey and Chief Oating Officer Hank Diedrichs, who will present the key outcomes from the company's DFS, which was released on the ASX this morning. Please feel free to submit your questions throughout today's webinar using the Q&A function located at the bottom of your screen. The company has allocated approximately 30 minutes for today's webinar and Q&A. At the end of the presentation, time permitting, the team will address as many of your questions as possible, and where appropriate, we will group similar questions together. If your question isn't addressed during the session, please follow up using the contact details provided in today's announcement. Before we get things started, I'd like to remind you that today's webinar is being recorded. Andrew, over to you.
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on which part of the world you're in. Thank you very much for joining me on this call, where we'll provide you with an update of the Bankan Definitive Feasibility Study results. As mentioned before, joining me on this call is Hank Diedrichs, Chief Operating Officer, the main driver behind this work, and I would like to thank Hank and all the team involved in completing the DFS study. I will provide a general overview of the project that is the culmination of 14 months' work since releasing the PFS in April 2024, and then hand over to Hank. Hank and myself will be available at the end of the presentation to take part in the Q&A.
The presentation is also available on our website, www.predictivediscovery.com, and I would also like to bring to your attention there is also a new 3D interactive model link within the release of the Bankan project that you can review at your own leisure. I'll now move on to slide two. Now, slide two has all the usual forward-looking statements, etc., that you can read in your own time when you have at your own leisure. Importantly, moving on to slide number three, the PD highlights. The DFS confirms the Bankan project is an outstanding project that will be developed into one of the largest gold mines in West Africa and deliver compelling returns for shareholders and stakeholders alike.
The DFS was completed in 14 months since the PFS was completed, with the economics of the Bankan project confirming its position as one of the largest and most advanced gold projects in Africa. It's delivering a plus 12-year mine life at an average annual production of 250,000 ounces per annum, a very highly competitive all-in sustaining cost of $1,057 an ounce, and an NPV of $1.6 billion at a $2,400 gold price. The project demonstrates exceptional leverage to the current strong gold price environment, with each additional $100 an ounce increasing the NPV by approximately $140 million. Through extensive optimization and strategic reviews since the PFS last year, we have demonstrated that returns will be maximized, which Hank will talk about further in further detail within the presentation. Now, Guinea itself. Guinea has been going through a period of extraordinary growth from its mining sector.
Bankan is the largest gold project soon to be under development, and one of our close neighbors will be pouring gold by the end of this year, and with the Semindou project about to deliver first ore by year-end, never has there been such a great time to be also building another gold mine in Guinea. Furthermore to this, the project will generate extensive benefits to our host country, Guinea, with government revenues totaling approximately $2 billion across Bankan's mine life, plus potential upside from current gold prices and future mine life extensions. Beyond these direct financial benefits, the project will also create significant job opportunities, with a peak construction workforce of approximately 1,500 personnel and an operational workforce of approximately 1,100 personnel. Bankan development has rapidly accelerated over the last two to three years. The PFS and DFS were completed last year in 2024.
The Environmental Compliance Certificate was issued in January 2025. With the DFS now completed and the exploitation permit application is imminent, we are in the final stage of the exploitation permit review process with the government of Guinea, and the granting of this permit is the final de-risking event for the project. We are very confident the exploitation permit will be secured in the near future, as it has now completed the final step with the last committee and moves on to awaiting signature. With this, I'd like to hand over to Hank to take you through the technical aspects of the DFS.
Thank you, Andrew. Moving on to slide five, the DFS highlights. The DFS confirmed that Bankan is a project of rare scale with 3 million ounces in reserve, 5.5 million ounces in resource, producing 250,000 ounces of gold per year over a 12-year life of mine from the NEB and BC deposits. Now, if I can point out the image on the right, you will notice the NEB and BC deposits at the bottom part of that image, and just flagging how small those deposits are compared to our exploitation permit application area and broader exploration license area spanning 35 km of strike along the highly prospective Siguiri Basin margin. The project delivers a $1.6 billion NPV, 46% IRR, and a two-year payback period at a gold price of $2,400 per ounce.
That significantly increases at today's gold price to approximately $2.9 billion NPV, a 73% IRR, and a payback period of approximately one year. Turning to slide six, I can take you through why this project delivers significant returns. When we started the DFS, we commenced a detailed review with three main objectives. The first was to explore the opportunities that were identified during the PFS, to establish the optimal transition point between the open pit and underground operation, and ultimately confirm the optimal plant throughput. The combination of the initial review and subsequent DFS activities significantly improved the project in key areas such as the pit geotech, where additional drilling and test work confirmed significantly steeper pit wall angles. In the case of the NEB pit hanging wall, that hanging wall overall slope angle increased or improved by more than 10 degrees.
A shallower transition between the open pit and the underground resulted in a smaller open pit with a significantly reduced strip ratio of 1.9:1, waste versus ore. We applied a more appropriate approach to dilution in the case of the open pit. At the start of this process, we looked at the ore benches in the NEB pit, and it was evident that we had a lot of continuity in ore. The PFS applied a global 10% dilution. When we looked at this closer, we noticed the opportunity to, I guess, follow a more sophisticated approach and apply edge dilution appropriately. That ultimately reduced the dilution to 4.5%, so a massive improvement compared to the PFS. Ultimately, we reduced the process plant capacity to 4.5 million tons per annum, and that was based on the optimized mine schedule. We moved to slide seven.
We can talk a bit more about the mining approach in general. The NEB deposit will be mined simultaneously through an open pit and underground mining operation. The open pit is a conventional drill-blast truck and shovel operation that will start with the excavation of the GBE deposit. That is a small pit on the top left of that image in front of you. Ultimately, the GBE pit will provide access for the decline development. The decline will be developed over a 15-month period, which then provides access to production stopes for ore delivery to the plant. The underground mine will be mined through a combination of longitudinal and transverse long-hole open stoping mining techniques.
We've taken quite a conservative approach in our mine optimization and design in that we used a $1,800 per ounce gold price that delivered a mining inventory of 54.5 million tons at 1.86 grams per ton for 3.26 million ounces of gold. How does that look from a mine scheduling perspective on slide eight? Firstly, the mine schedule considers multiple ore sources and stages, which de-risks our operations. Secondly, it also facilitates blending of different ore types for feed to our process plant. On average, the open pits will deliver a 1.39 grams per ton ore grade and the underground 3.77 grams per ton for a consistent combined mine ore grade of 1.86 grams per ton over the life of mine.
On that bottom chart, the open pit annual material movement will peak at 14 million tons per annum, with 1.4 million tons per annum being mined from the underground. The open pit strip ratio, as you can see by years one, two, and three, is very low, peaking in year four with the development of the NEB stage three, and then progressively reducing over the remaining life of mine. Moving on to the process slide number nine. The process plant is a conventional 4.5 million ton per annum facility comprising of a jaw crusher and a mineral sizer. The jaw crusher will be used to crush the fresh ore, and the mineral sizer is the separate material. That then goes through an SABC grinding circuit, gravity gold recovery, CIL circuit, electrowinning, smelting, and ultimately producing a gold doré.
Residue from the CIL circuit will report to the detox circuit for cyanide extraction and then tailings filtration. Our filtered tailings will be used for a paste backfill in the underground operation, and the balance of tailings will then be deposited in a conventional ICPE-lined tailings storage facility. The metallurgical test work demonstrated excellent gold recoveries of 92.8% total recovery based on a P80 grind size of 75 micron, with 32% of gold recovery through a gravity circuit, which leads us to the production profile on slide number 10. The production schedule comprised a blended feed of 1.8 grams per ton, consistently delivering 250,000 ounces of gold per year over 12 years, as illustrated by the bottom graph on that slide. That feed, the design feed envelope for the plant, is based on a minimum 25% fresh feed and maximum 50% separate feed at any stage.
On slide 11, we will discuss the operating and capital costs in more detail. The number that really jumps out to me on that slide is the very competitive all-in sustaining cost of $1,057 per ounce, which is $100 per ounce less than what we had in the PFS 14 months ago. The low all-in sustaining cost is largely attributable to the high plant feed grade of 1.86 grams per ton, the reduced open pit material movement, which is a combination of the low strip ratio and shallower pit, and then a blended feed into the process plant, which optimizes process power consumption. On a dollar per ton unit cost basis, none of the cost areas really stands out to me as very low unit costs. To the contrary, the open pit mining cost of $4.97 per ton mine benchmarks very high compared to some other West African operations.
I do believe there's opportunity for further upside opportunity in that unit cost when we go through a formal binding tender process in the future. Our power tariff of $0.225 per kilowatt hour is based on site-generated power using a combination of HSO and solar battery power generation. That still leaves us with the option in the future to potentially connect to the national grid when that's available and provide it competitively priced. Our capital and operating costs were developed with a target accuracy of plus minus 15% and a base date of Q1 2025. I generally derive from contractor and vendor budget quotations. Quick look at the DFS pre-production capital cost breakdown on the right-hand side of the slide. Total pre-production capital cost of $463 million USD.
The pre-production mining comprised $43 million of open pit mining, $63 million of underground mining, and then $272 million infrastructure related, which also includes the construction indirects, $50 million of onus costs, and a $34 million contingency, which represents 10.6% of the base estimate, excluding the pre-production mining costs. We move on to the financial metrics slide 12. The project is expected to generate substantial free cash flow, essentially from the very first year of production, averaging $250 million per year over 12 years at a gold price of $2,400 per ounce. The free cash flow increases to over $400 million per annum at current spot gold prices. That is largely underpinned by a consistently low all-in sustaining cost of $1,057 per ounce over the life of mine.
This large free cash flow results in payback of capital costs in less than two years at $2,400 per ounce gold price. The project sensitivity is on slide 13. The DFS confirmed that the project economics are very robust to changes in key assumptions, as illustrated by the tornado graph on the left. Importantly, the project returns very strong economics on gold price, as illustrated on the right-hand side. Perhaps if we can just pause there for a second, if we look at all the project economics on the right-hand side, whether you look at $2,000 per ounce or up to $4,000 per ounce, essentially across the board, all those metrics remain very compelling, further supporting the robustness of this project. Slide 14, project implementation schedule. The schedule is based on an FID in Q2 2026.
Leading up to FID, we will be focusing on project financing, execution readiness activities, certain early works, and then the main construction commences upon FID and continues for 24 months, with first gold production anticipated Q2 2028. We're very confident that this implementation schedule is achievable. To conclude, I will touch on some exploration opportunities. Notwithstanding the extent of our land holding of 35 kilometers along the highly prospective Siguiri Basin margin, where we have seen recent resource growth in the Argo area in particular, that's illustrated by the diagram on the right. The immediate upside for this project is the multiple near-mine exploration targets shown on the left diagram. As you will note, there are various target areas proximal to the NEB and BC deposits, which may result in future satellite deposits. Importantly, the NEB deposit remains open at depth.
These targets will be further assessed and, where appropriate, progressively tested in future. I now hand over to Andrew to conclude with investment highlights.
Okay, thank you very much, . In closing on slide 16, scale. The project is big, as can be seen from the DFS results today. Remember, the optimization work was done at $1,800 an ounce. The economics were done at $2,400 an ounce. You look at the gold price today of just over $3,300 an ounce. This is a big project. Bankan is a big deposit, not just in Africa, but globally, a resource of over 5.5 million ounces and growing. This is a sizable long-life project that will generate significant free cash flows right from the beginning of production, with a payback of less than two years using a $2,400 gold price.
The DFS has been a critical de-risking catalyst, which will be rapidly followed up with awarding of the exploitation permit, which is in the final stage of the exploitation permit review process, as I said at the start of this call. We are expecting the granting of this permit in the near future. I'm very confident we will secure that process soon. It has gone through all the committees, and it's on the final stage of waiting for the final signature. Combined with this, we have the right backing. We have a highly experienced board and management team, technical team, with vast experience in financing, building, and operating projects across Africa.
This is further supported by the quality of our shareholder base, both in terms of some of the largest institutions in the world, but also high-quality strategic investors who also share our view of the quality of the Bankan project. With that, I'd like to hand back to the and open up the floor to any Q&A.
Thank you.
Thank you, Andrew. We haven't received any questions as of yet, so we'll just give it a minute or so to see if any questions come through. If you do have any questions on the call, please submit them through the Q&A function.
All right. I'm working on the assumption. Hank and I have been going for over 18 hours today. It's been a long day. Our marketing, etc. I'm assuming there are no questions.
If anyone does have any questions, our contact details are in the report. You can reach out to Brad, etc. or contact myself or Hank directly, and we'd be happy to jump on a call or via email, answer any further questions that you may have. Can I also just remind everyone as well to bring, again, remind you of the new 3D interactive model link that is also available within the release today. Please go through that. It's an interactive process where you can see the planning for the project, how it's mined over the 12.2-year mine life. With that, I'd like to say thank you very much for everyone joining this call. Please reach out if you have any further questions. Thank you very much.