Our first one is Paul Hemburrow from Paladin Energy. He's Chief Operating Officer, and can I say this, Paul, but ready to take over the reins as CEO. A bit of background: Paul is a Senior Resources Sector Executive with over 30 years operational experience and leadership roles in mining, processing, port operations, and rail networks across multiple commodities and the complex operating environments. Prior to joining Paladin Energy in 2023, he was the GM of Aurizon's Central Queensland Coal Network. Paul spent 17 years with Rio Tinto, where he held several positions from Manager of Port Operations to General Manager of New Zealand Aluminum Smelter Ltd. After that, he worked for BHP for almost eight years as GM of Transformation, GM of the Blackwater Mine, GM of the Yandi Mine, and lastly, GM of Maari Recife. Paul, the floor is yours.
Thanks, Andrew, and good morning, everyone. I'm incredibly pleased to be here today. This time last year, we had really only just started Langer Heinrich Mine, and it was early days, and we've had a lot of progress since. I'm very pleased to be able to talk about what we've been doing. Paladin is a global uranium producer with a strong foundation for growth and for value creation. We have an exceptional growth opportunity at Patterson Lake South, which is a high-grade, near-surface deposit located in a premium uranium jurisdiction. We've got the Langer Heinrich Mine, which is now in its final phase of ramp-up. In the last quarter, we achieved record crusher throughput in the history of the mine, and we're now working towards full mining and processing operations by the end of FY2026.
The uranium market outlook is strong, driven by an increasing nuclear energy demand and structural supply-demand deficit. Our production and growth pipeline spans multiple decades, with key projects in Namibia, Canada, and Australia. The Langer Heinrich Mine and Patterson Lake South Project are at the forefront of our growth strategy, with our other significant projects available to progress at some time in the near future when the time is right. The outlook for the uranium market is extremely positive. The demand for nuclear energy is driven by the need for clean and reliable baseload power. Significant incremental demand is expected from COP28, COP29 initiatives, as well as the executive orders aimed at boosting the nuclear energy sector in the U.S.A. Current demand is underpinned by the 430-odd operating reactors.
Medium and long-term demand is driven by the 69 reactors under construction and the more than 100 reactors or so in various phases of planning. There's a clear disconnect between the uranium requirements and supply. Major uranium-consuming countries like the U.S.A., China, and France have minimal domestic supplies. European utilities are increasingly focused on diversifying their supply sources, while global utilities have significant uncovered uranium requirements of around $1 billion between now and 2035. The Langer Heinrich Mine is a key asset for Paladin. The operational ramp-up is expected to be complete by the end of this financial year. Looking back, we produced just over 3 million pounds in the last financial year, with an average realized price of $65.70 per pound and an average cost of production of $40.20 per pound.
We've started mining, which drove an increase in the tonnes to the crusher and an uplift in the grade in the last quarter. We currently have about 50% of our mining fleet on site, mostly 100-ton trucks, 150-ton diggers, and the remaining fleet is expected to arrive by the end of this calendar year, made up of a fleet of 150-ton trucks and Hitachi 2600 excavators. We expect to have that fleet fully operational by the second half of FY2026, and we'll have made the transition from our medium-grade stockpile to prime-mined ore. Over the last year, we've achieved sustainable overall recovery rates in the processing plants, and I expect to be able to maintain those in the year ahead. With the commencement of mining, we've seen crusher throughput increase to levels not seen in the plant in its entire history.
This demonstrates that the debottlenecking work that we did during the project and refurbishment of the plant has done exactly what we thought it would and increased the capability of that plant. With mine tonnes and the increase in grade from the pit, we saw an uplift in our production volumes to just under $1 million in the last quarter. On site, our infrastructure is ready for full production. We've just completed the construction of our last tailings facility with a new designed return water capability. Our power supply infrastructure, including our own generation facilities, has all been refurbished. It's in great shape and has a track record of reliable supply. The NEM water upgrades are now fully commissioned, and our on-site infrastructure is in place and capable.
We have multiple water supply bladders and new bore water abstraction to meet our needs, and water consumption optimization work has also been largely complete on site, reducing our site's overall demand. Our contract book has 13 tier-one counterparties. It's a laid contract book with new contracts struck in a rising market. Between 2025 and 2030, the contract book has 43% base escalated pricing, providing downside protection, and 50% market-related price with mostly uncapped upside exposure. In the long term, 87% of Langer Heinrich Mine's reserve is either uncontracted or at market-related prices. The Patterson Lake South Project in Canada is an exceptional growth opportunity. It's located in the Athabasca Basin, the world's premier high-grade uranium mining district. The project has a high-grade uranium deposit with an excellent local infrastructure. For those unfamiliar with the Athabasca Basin, it is to uranium what the Pilbara is to iron ore.
The Patterson Lake South (PLS) Project is shallow, with the ore body starting only 50 meters from surface. The ore body is hosted in basement rock, and we have 93.4 million pounds of probable reserves with a grade of 14,100 ppm, which is quite extraordinary and about 20 x higher than what we have at Langer Heinrich Mine. It's capable of 9 million pounds per annum and requires throughput of only 1,000 tonnes per day of mining. Mining will be conventional hard rock underground mining, and the flow sheet that we're using in the processing plant will be exactly the same and very typical for the Athabasca region. In the last six months since we acquired Fission Uranium Corp., we've completed a significant amount of work, including obtaining the exemption from the NROP, which allows Paladin Energy Ltd to maintain 100% controlling interest in the project.
We've completed two MBAs with two First Nations groups, and we have significant progress on two others. We've had acceptance by Environment Saskatchewan on our final EIS. There are probably a couple more weeks to go before the public review closes, and we expect a ministerial decision by the end of this calendar year. What's next for PLS? We'll complete full review of the feasibility study, conduct ongoing negotiations and engagement with First Nations, and we expect to close out the EIS by the end of this year. We'll continue engagement with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission towards achieving a permit to construct, and we'll maintain an ongoing drilling campaign to extend Triple R deposit resource and enhance our understanding of the Saloon East trend. We'll continue to work towards our readiness for preparation of detailed engineering as we progress the project.
Our exploration priorities are very heavily focused on PLS and close proximity prospective targets. We'll continue progressing resource definition at PLS, and we'll enhance our knowledge of the existing ore body at Langer Heinrich Mine and resource extension to increase the life of mine. We will further explore across Canada to continue to develop long-term options for growth. Saloon East is a new and significant opportunity. It's located 3.5 kilometers from the Triple R deposit. In the last winter program, we drilled 11 holes which intersected high levels of radioactivity that we haven't seen since the discovery of PLS. I'm looking forward to the next couple of drilling campaigns to see how this develops. Our strategy is to maximize production from Langer Heinrich Mine and drive PLS development, delivering organic growth through the disciplined approach to exploration.
In closing, Paladin Energy through this strategy is committed to delivering sustainable value for all of our shareholders. Thank you very much.