Our next presenter is Zef Reeves, Managing Director of Tesoro Gold Ltd.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'm here to talk to you about Tesoro Gold and the El Zorro Gold Project. Located in the northern part of Chile in the Atacama Desert, Tesoro owns El Zorro, which is developing into a very attractive Chilean development opportunity. I think I was here last year and we're in the midst of a 20,000 meter drill campaign at the Tenera gold deposit. At that stage, Tenera was a 1.3 million ounce gold deposit. We thought it had a lot of growth in it. The culmination of that drilling program resulted in an updated mineral resource estimate which was announced in May this year. That 20,000 meters of drilling added an additional 500,000 ounces to the deposit.
We're currently sitting at 1.8 million ounces, constrained within a $3,000 an ounce pit, but unconstrained our resource is 2 million ounces. We've also completed what is now feasibility level met work. Fantastic results. Some of the best met that I've seen in a gold deposit in my career. All that has fared into an updated scoping study, which I'll talk to you about shortly, which essentially demonstrates that at Tenera there is a very technically, financially robust, coastal located gold project in Chile to be built. We really ` that our Zorro and Tesoro is a golden opportunity. It's an economically robust and technically straightforward gold project, which we still have huge district scale potential. This is a unique geological environment in Chile. This is the first intrusive related gold system that has ever been discovered in Chile.
This was completely unknown before Tesoro got on the ground. It's allowed us to acquire a majority of our 670 sq km of tenure in an uncompetitive process because people simply weren't looking for these types of deposits. We've been there since 2017 and to date we've defined the Tenera gold deposit sits at just over just under 2 million ounces at 1.07 grams per tonne gold unconstrained. Some of the work that was done in that drilling program has also significantly improved the resource robustness. 60% of the resources is in the indicated classification and the ounces per vertical metre have improved markedly with that last drill program. On average through this deposit and for an open pit deposit, it's quite attractive. We're sitting on an average of around 5,000 ounces per vertical metre, which helps with mining. The metallurgy as I said is fantastic.
We consistently get over 94% recovery through all grade ranges and all types of and at a very coarse grind size of 125 microns. I think if you compare that to some of our peers, particularly in Western Australia, a lot of those deposits are being mined and processed down around 70 microns or less. We have a large component of gold that recovers to the gravity circuit. On average, 40% again across all grade ranges, even down near our cutoffs. Very good in that regard and very low cyanide consumption on a very short leach time. That is all pointing towards a very simple, straightforward, well-known processing pathway. This is a very simple project.
All of that fed into an updated scoping study which we released in June this year and has provided our board with the information that they needed to make the decision to push this project directly through into pre-feasibility studies. Just before I talk on the scoping study outcomes, just a quick corporate snapshot. We've just completed the large institutional capital raise so the company is now fully funded through to the end of feasibility which we anticipate completing by the end of 2026, pre-feas by April next year. We're also fully funded for an extensive and aggressive exploration campaign to continue to grow Tenera and to also aggressively explore our large ground holdings which have got some very exciting targets emerging from it. Notably, you'll see Gold Fields sitting there at around 13% in a strategic investment.
Gold Fields have participated in three placements, three capital raisings in equity placements. They've invested a total of about AUD 13 million. Everybody always asks what do Gold Fields want to see out of this? I think the same things that we want to see out of it. They see Tenera. It's a growing gold deposit. It's still open in all directions. It's a new belt that's completely unexplored with some seriously good targets emerging out of that and the location. We are located on the coast in Chile. It's probably one of the best places you could ever want to try and build a gold mine. We think the Tenera deposit is only 13 km from the coast and the Pan-American Highway. We have power 20 km away. We have water from a desalination plant 20 km away.
We have MOUs in place with the owners of those two pieces of infrastructure. We're working with them to provide a technical and financial model to deliver water and power to the site. The power line currently has around 170 megawatt capacity. Only around 70 is being used. More than enough to put power on site at El Zorro. The water that we intend on using for processing is actually the wastewater from the desalination plant. It is around twice as salty as seawater. Works perfectly in a gold plant. Our peers in Western Australia, for example, are operating with up to 10 times the saltiness of seawater from groundwater in Western Australia. Not only that, this water that we have used, all our met works being done in that water, cyanide performs beautifully in it.
The main reason being is all the organics have been stripped out of it. There is nothing to interfere with how cyanide dissolves gold. We have a port 57 km away, Caldera, that is where our team stay. It is about a 50 minute drive on paved roads directly to the project. It sits in Region 3. Region 3 is mining rich. A majority of the economic activity in Region 3 is generated from the mining industry. You can see on that map all the operational mines through the region. This is a very strong mining jurisdiction. With our coastal location and access to infrastructure, I do not think you will find a better location to build a gold mine. Just on our recent resource update, this deposit is still open in all directions. The resource numbers that you see up there do not report any underground resources.
The deposit is open at depth and you can see underneath that pit there, which is the $3,000 an ounce pit that constrains the 1.82 million ounces. There are some significant high grade zones sitting under there. There is potential to continue to grow this deposit at depth. It is also open north and south in both directions. You can see what happens with cut off grade in this deposit. If we go up to a 2 grams per tonne cutoff grade, for example, we still have nearly 700,000 ounces at around 3.5 grams, demonstrating the continuity and strength of the high grade through the deposit. We will look at extracting some of that earlier on in the mine schedule. We will start looking at some of those things during the pre-feasibility study.
The scoping study that we recently completed, our base case used a $2,750 an ounce gold price, contemplating a 3 million tonne per annum throughput on an initial 14 year mine life. What that gave us is a mine that produces from a single pit on average 111,000 ounces a year for the first nine years at a very attractive all-in sustaining cost of around $1,200 US an ounce. The post-tax NPV at a 7.5% discount rate for that is $663 million US. At $2,750 upfront capital cost is around $250 million US. That includes a $40 million pre-strip. That is a reasonably modest capital cost. Again, the benefit of operating in a region where we have access to power and access to water right on our doorstep has a significant impact on the capital cost of building a project like this.
Everyone always asks what happens in today's gold price environment? We ran the numbers on that. We are well over $3,950 today when I had a look. That highest gold price cut scenario there is producing an NPV of $1.3 billion US and nearly an 85% IRR. Obviously where we are today, we are probably sitting at 100% IRR. Importantly for us as well, what happens at a lower gold price? If the world suddenly falls apart and down to $2,300, we still have a robust project producing an NPV of over $400 million US. Now we are fully funded. We are working on multiple work streams to complete a PFS by April next year and that will enable us to announce first ore reserves in April.
We've got to get about 20,000 metres of drilling into Tenera as infill to improve the resource classification in some areas of the deposit. Currently we have five drill rigs on site, drilling away and the guys have got to get those metres into the ground by February. That will lead to an updated resource and the PFS to be announced in targeting April next year. We've already commenced the permitting process in Chile. It is a very straightforward process to get a mining project permitted. It's very prescriptive, but it takes some time. That includes a 12 month environmental baseline study and then submission to the government and allow the government around six months to grant a permit. We're well advanced on that.
Our baseline studies have started and we expect that by the time we're coming towards the end of definitive feasibility study at the back end of 2026, early 2027, we shouldn't be too long from getting a permit in our hands and be ready for a final investment decision on this project and mine finance. That funding has also allowed us to be fully funded for a three-pronged drilling campaign. We're doing all of this all at the same time. We've got a fantastic belt at our Zorro which has got multiple outcropping gold targets along that belt. We've got a 20,000 meter infill drilling program which is underway. We've got extensional drilling at Tenera. This deposit is open along strike, shallow and at depth beneath that pit.
New discovery drilling along the new gold corridor that we have defined, which is now over 30 km long. We're just finishing off some drilling in that northern target up at La Brea. It is around 20 km north of Tenera. The more work we do, the more excited we are getting about additional discoveries in this belt and the style of mineralization it is. These deposits tend to cluster and we are certainly starting to see that pattern emerge out of El Zorro. Just quickly on some of the near-term growth plans for Tenera. That blue outline on that map is the current resource outline. There are some drill results highlighted to the north and south of that outline that are not in the resource results, like 53 m at 1.17 in the south and 63 m at 1.18 in the north, for example.
These are all shallow and show that there's plenty of growth to have in this. We can certainly see a pathway to take this to up to around 3 million ounces. With what we know today, stepping out a touch, there's been a fairly keen focus on targets within 5 km of Tenera. Obviously anything we find close to Tenera is going to be beneficial as we intend on building a plant there. Some fantastic targets emerging out of our exploration work, particularly that target in the south there, Pena Blanca. It's new and it's big. We had some news out about that last week, but it's certainly shaping up to be quite an attractive target. Numerous other targets within a 5 km radius which have either not been drilled or have only had one or two scout holes with positive results out of it.
Just to wrap up, multiple work fronts underway to continue to grow and de-risk this project and get it through. Feasibility study permitting is underway. Expect DFS out in April and plenty of drill results to come out between now and the next six to twelve months. Thank you.
Thank you.