Welcome to Virtual Investor Conferences. On behalf of OTC Markets, we're very pleased you joined us for our three-day metals and mining conference. Our first presentation of the conference is from Tesoro Gold . Please note, you may submit questions for the presenter in the box to the left of the slides, and you can view a company's availability for one-on-one meetings by clicking "Book a Meeting" in the top toolbar. At this point, I'm very pleased to welcome Zeff Reeves. He's the Managing Director of Tesoro Gold , which trades in the OTCQB venture market under the symbol TESORF and on the ASX under the symbol TSO. Welcome back, Zeff.
Hi, thanks, and thanks for having me. Thank you, everybody, for attending today. Tesoro Gold is a single-asset company developing the El Zorro Gold Project in Chile. We've got a highly attractive single open pit Chilean gold development opportunity in this project, and the deposit that we have is probably one of the largest and newest undeveloped gold deposits in Chile. Recently, we've just announced an updated and expanded mineral resource, and that resource continues to grow and is starting to demonstrate some serious scale. That's at the Tenere Gold deposit, which is currently at 1.82 million oz, constrained within a $3,000 U.S. an ounce pit. We've just completed an open pit scoping study, which shows that we've got a very technically simple and an economically robust project at Ternera. Importantly, we're in a very strategic coastal location.
Everything we need is within less than 25 km of the project: power, water, workforce, all in a coastal location at low altitude. We really think that at El Zorro, we've got a golden opportunity to bring online Chile's next major gold mine. We've just published an updated mineral resource, and off the back of that, we've just published a new scoping study for an expanded open pit mining operation at the Ternera Gold deposit. Since our last mineral resource update, which was done back in 2023, we've had a significant upgrade to that mineral resource. We're now sitting at 2 million oz at 1.07 g per ton gold in an unconstrained resource, or 1.82 million oz at 1.1 g, constrained within a $3,000 U.S. an ounce gold-priced open pit.
Importantly, 60% of that resource is in the indicated classification, allowing us to take a large portion of that resource, put it into a production profile for a future mine. Importantly, also, the new resource improved the ounces per vertical meter. This is starting to be very attractive for a very profitable mining operation. Ounces per vertical meter through the main part of the deposit are well over 5,000 oz per vertical meter, which is very favorable in comparison to some of our peers. The metallurgy on this deposit is some of the best metallurgy I've seen in any gold project I've worked on. The average gold recovery is over 94% at a very coarse grind size of 125 microns and a very low cyanide consumption.
We use this new resource and this very attractive metallurgy done off the testing that we've done to produce an updated and expanded scoping study, which demonstrated that there's a robust project both financially and technically to execute at Ternera through a very simple development pathway. It's really provided the Tesoro board with the information to make a decision to push this project through directly into pre-feasibility study, which is due to complete in April 2026. Just a quick corporate snapshot. We've just completed a very successful capital raising. We just raised AUD 34 million Australian from institutional investors to support the ongoing development and expansion of the project. Currently, board and management hold around just over 4% of the project. Institutional investors, including a substantial investor, Collins St, who are based in Melbourne, hold around 50% of the issued capital of the company.
Once all the shares are issued from the current capital raising, we'll be sitting on around AUD 35 million Australian cash with a market capitalization of around AUD 165 million Australian dollars. You also see on this slide a major shareholder, Gold Fields . Gold Fields are one of the world's major gold producers, and they own a mine around about 160 km from El Zorro called Salares Norte. Gold Fields have taken a position in the company around three years ago. Everybody always asks me why are Gold Fields interested in El Zorro, and I think for all the reasons we like it. It's got a 2 million oz deposit, which is open in all directions, but it's probably most importantly for them and for us going forward, we see the potential for a multi-million ounce gold district here.
This is the first time this region has been explored, and we've discovered a brand new gold district in a superb coastal location, which makes development very easy. I think for all those reasons, Gold Fields have invested now over AUD 1 4 million into our business over our three separate capital raisings over a period of around about two years. I mentioned our location. On this slide, you can see the El Zorro Gold Project concessions. Ternera sits more or less in the middle of that concession holding, around about 13 km from the coast. We have the Pan American Highway, which runs along the coast, and only 20 km away from the project, we have access to power and water. There's a desalination plant and a high-voltage power line both within 20 km.
The owners of that infrastructure, we've already signed MOUs with those, with the owners of that infrastructure to work with them to develop a technical and financial model to deliver both power and water to El Zorro when we construct a mine for the mining of the Ternera Gold deposit. It's very easy to get to. It's only about a one-hour flight from Santiago to the Copiapó Airport and about an hour from there on sealed roads all the way to the El Zorro Gold Project. It also sits in Region III of Chile, which is in the Atacama Desert. It is a major mining region of Chile. A number of large projects are already operating, and a number of new projects have recently been permitted in this region. A majority of the revenue and employment within the region comes from the mining sector.
We've recently updated that mineral resource, as I mentioned, and so it's now constrained to 1.82 million oz and added within a AUD 3,000 an ounce pit shell with 62% of that indicated. Now the deposit remains open in all directions. We see some fantastic grades and widths at depth beneath that pit shell, so there's certainly potential to go underground beyond the mining of an initial open pit. The deposit is also open north and south. You can see the nature of the mineralization as demonstrated by higher cutoffs. For example, if we use the one gram per ton cutoff, the total resource grade jumps up to two grams per ton.
What we see in the deposit is some very continuous, wide, high-grade zones, and there's certainly scope to further optimize the mining schedules going forward into feasibility to leverage off those high-grade zones and produce even greater cash flows earlier on in the project to allow more rapid payback and so on. Off the back of that resource update, we've recently just published an updated scoping study or a preliminary economic study. That study, our base case was completed at AUD 2,750 an ounce gold. Now, today, I think we've just hit a record of AUD 4,000 an ounce gold in this session. Obviously, there's a lot of upside on the gold price, but our base case of AUD 2,750 an ounce, the project post-tax NPV at a 7.5% discount rate produces an NPV of $663 million US dollars.
Importantly, we believe the all-in sustaining cost for the life of the mine will be around $1,200 U.S. an ounce, and that's at a 3 million-ton throughput for an initial 14-year operating life to produce 1.26 million oz of gold. Relatively modest upfront capital of just under $250 million U.S. That includes $40 million U.S. dedicated to pre-stream, producing an overall cash flow of $1.23 billion U.S. using that base case of AUD 2,750. However, when we have a look at this project using different gold prices, we can see the sensitivity there in this table. Even down around AUD 2,300, our NPV still remains at $400 million U.S. Now up here, which is close to today's gold price, we're looking at an NPV of $1.3 billion U.S. post-tax over the life of the mine. These numbers are obviously very compelling.
That all-in sustaining cost being very low provides a huge profit margin on every ounce of gold mined in this project. That study has provided the board the information and the determination to go forward immediately into pre-feasibility studies. We're well advanced on that with the aim to have that study completed by April 2026, which will then enable the company to announce its first ore reserve on the project. The upcoming 12-1 8 months, now that we are fully funded, this will see us funded through to the completion of a definitive feasibility study, as well as a very aggressive exploration campaign across the wider El Zorro district and further resource upgrades at Ternera. That includes the pre-feasibility study due to be completed in April 2026. We have already started the permitting process. That is about a two-year process in Chile.
It is a very well-trodden path. There has been over $100 billion U.S. dollars worth of mining projects permitted in Chile in the last two years. It is a very prescriptive and straightforward process that takes around two years of work, which includes a 12-month baseline study. We're well into those baseline studies. Following that, we are aiming to deliver a full BFS by the end of 2026, with the permit soon to be awarded in early 2027, moving us into construction and first production in late 2028, early 2029. We firmly believe that El Zorro is a district-scale gold development opportunity. We already have the 2 million oz at Ternera, which is still open, and we'll be doing a lot of drilling there in the coming months.
We're also looking for other deposits within the region, and we have a number of very high-priority targets that we will be working on and looking for additional discoveries throughout our concession holding over the coming months. We firmly believe there's significant potential to be a multi-million ounce new gold district in Chile. To date, and this map shows some of our targets, we're currently doing some drilling at La Brea. It's the first ever exploration that has been done through this belt. We've discovered a number of high-priority targets. All of these targets are close to surface and offer additional open pit potential. We're rolling out a very aggressive exploration campaign across that full 30 km gold corridor over the next 12 months. That includes up to 11,000 m of drilling across multiple targets, looking to discover more deposits.
We're also going to be doing quite a bit of drilling at Ternera and doing some drilling underneath the current pit shell to assess the possibility of underground resources and mine extensions post-open pit mining. Obviously, that expanded baseline study will be ongoing through the year as well. Just to wrap up, we've got this large, highly prospective gold project. Nothing was here prior to Tesoro. This is a greenfields discovery, and we firmly believe it's the next multi-million ounce gold district to be discovered in Chile. We hope to prove that with some drilling on some new areas in the upcoming months. Currently, a 2 million oz unconstrained mineral resource, we believe that's got significant growth left in it, both at depth and along strike north and south. The Ternera deposit has exceptional metallurgy, which leads towards simple processing. We're not looking at novel solutions.
We're going to build a very standard gold plant on this project, the type of plant that is common in many mines around the world. We continue to see this resource and district-level growth potential with the more work that our exploration team does. We've continued to bolster our management team. We've recently appointed a Chief Development Officer. We're continuing to bolster that team to deliver this project in a compressed timeframe. The current board of Tesoro have all got a long history in being able to deliver new development projects into production very quickly. We really think that this is going to continue to grow, and we're going to deliver a continued expansion and upgrading of the open pit both at Ternera and the potential for underground at Ternera. The scoping study certainly demonstrates a straightforward project of scale. Thank you for listening to the Tesoro update.
There's a number of questions that have come through, so I'll just read a couple of those out and refer to those. One question is, how many holes have we planned for the target La Brea, and when should we expect results? Currently, we've planned an initial eight holes at La Brea. That drilling is ongoing. Our typical lab turnaround once the samples get into the lab is anywhere from four to six weeks. We've yet to deliver any core to the lab, but you can expect to see some of those results probably start to trickle through before the end of the year and potentially before the end of November. Another question is on the elevation of the project and some commentary on water availability and any water issues.
In being in a coastal location, the Ternera Gold deposit average elevation at surface is around 650 m above sea level. We're not at elevation. The highest point on the entire project is around 1,000 m above sea level. We have access to water via the ocean. There is a desalination plant around about 20 km away. What we're contemplating doing, or what the project contemplates to use, is the wastewater from that desalination plant. It is the bittern's brine that comes out of the desalination plant post the reverse osmosis process. It's about twice as saline as seawater, and we've used that in all the metallurgical tests we've done with fantastic results. One of the reasons it has fantastic results is all the organic matter's being taken out of it, which allows cyanide to work very well.
There are a couple of questions here on project finance and potential upfront CapEx costs and so on. Part of the work that we will do over the next 6-1 2 months with our feasibility study and our definitive feasibility study to be delivered during 2026, we'll start to consider the mix of debt, equity, and other sources of financing for this project. It is something that the board is starting to turn their attention to. Certainly, with the gold price and the margin per ounce that this project's able to deliver, it allows a lot of potential flexibility in how this project's financed going forward. You can expect to probably see more information around that as we make each of our milestones with those feasibility studies. There's a question around M&A. Would M&A be in consideration after a feasibility study or a small production with open pit?
Probably the short answer to that is obviously Gold Fields on our register has raised the interests of many other corporates. We never say never to anything. The base strategy for Tesoro Gold Ltd was always to explore and discover in the coastal belt of Chile with access to infrastructure and make a discovery and take that through to production. That is still the core strategy of the business. Being able to deliver an open pit that produces over 100,000 oz a year, the pathway to do that is essentially the same pathway to achieve our M&A scenario, which is continue to grow and de-risk the project. We'll continue to move through that process. I think you'll start to see more M&A activity in the current gold price environment. We're starting to see it in Australia now.
We have great support with our strategic shareholder, Gold Fields , who obviously like our project as we do. We'll just see how things progress over the next 6- 12 months. Just one final question, just on contact details, email address of a person. If you go to our website, which is tesorogold.com.au, and go to the Contact Us or our Investor Hub Center, you're able to communicate directly with the company. Most of that communication will come to me as Managing Director. You're able to communicate directly with me, and I encourage everyone on this call to jump onto our Investor Hub. There's a wealth of information there. You're able to interact directly with the company and ask any further questions or obtain any other further information. I thank you for your time.
If there's no further questions, I think we've got a very exciting 6- 12 months coming up as we advance the project through development towards production. Also very exciting is the possibility of discovering more gold deposits on the El Zorro Gold Project. Thank you.