All right, so I think we can make a start. So firstly, welcome. This is Tivan's first investor briefing for the year. I'm Grant Wilson, Executive Chair. I'm in Sydney today at Earth AI's studios. This is newfangled technology this time around and giving a test and, yeah, looking forward to, I think, hopefully a very informative session to start the year. For those that have been following Tivan's journey over the past couple of years, you'll know there were a lot of changes in the fourth quarter. You'll also know that we're very much committed to open and transparent communications at Tivan.
So we're kicking off the year with one of our investor briefings. There'll be four main sections today, a couple of slides on sort of firm-wide aspects, and this is partly to cater for the new audience. We know that we've got a lot more people now following the stock in the room today. I can see as well many new shareholders as well, all of which is, you know, frankly, really encouraging. So there'll be a little bit of contextual stuff at the start. Then we'll move into a couple of key project updates, then a couple of corporate updates. And then I want to reserve as much time as I can today for Q&A, up to probably half an hour, because we have received a lot of questions.
And again, I think this reflects all of the new information that came through, particularly late in Q4. So we'll wrap that all up within an hour. There'll be a replay tonight. We know the replays are getting a lot of views as well. So part of this is just to log the start of the year. So when people see where we get to this year, they've got something to reference back to. So when the slides come up and you've got them on the ASX anyway, the first slide that you'll see is to do with our redefined corporate mission. And so at the AGM in mid-November, we went from our sort of stated mission, which was initially to build grid storage through a Vanadium pathway to a map, essentially.
And the map's a great device because it's really easy for people to understand. And we redefined the corporate mission of Tivan formally at the AGM, which is to build a company of strategic importance across Northern Australia. So it's really simple. And I think when you're building a proper company, it is actually important not just to have a mission, but to have a mission which everyone can understand and which is clearly differentiated from others. And the second slide in the deck is very much about that differentiation. We spent quite a bit of time discussing the comparative advantages that we have at Tivan. And we've lived this journey now for a couple of years, and it's become very clear to us what those advantages are.
Here we're talking about other companies in the sector and also, you know, the pathways I think that we've secured now in Asia with fluorite, which is obviously a new critical mineral for Australia, but also leveraging things such as our governmental relationships, our standing with traditional owners in the Kimberley, our incredible team, the incredible acquisitions that we've made early on at Tivan and the way that we've been able to finance and structure those, the penetration we have in Asia, our access to large-scale capital, which we've demonstrated already at Christmas, as well as all the facilitation raises that we've got through in the past couple of years. When you look at that chart in terms of our comparative advantages, it's quite straightforward, but I think it's quite powerful.
And we think that we'll now endure. So the two things that really came out of the AGM were those two things alone. The first is that we've got a really simple, well-defined corporate mission, as it were, very distinctive. There's no one else up in Central Australia or Australia trying to build a company such as us. And then secondarily, the progress that we've made, it's demonstrable progress as well, has enabled us to define a whole subset of self-reinforcing comparative advantages, which we now think will be durable. Like, this is not something I think we're going to come back to in one year's time, in two years' time. I think that when we look at where Tivan gets to something in this year and the next couple of years, those two images will be static.
Now, I say that with one caveat because I did say this at the AGM. On the map, there is one mission at the moment, and we hope to be able to define Project X in the timeframes that I mentioned at the AGM, which is January and February. So we're working away on that. It is sensitive. I know that it's taken on sort of a life of its own online. Everyone's sort of speculating as to what Project X might be. I ask everyone just to be patient. I don't want to add to the speculation today because it is a sensitive situation. Obviously, there's other people involved. And so I think I can share that with all the speculation that's online, still no one is close to the mark.
Perhaps the only other thing I would say is that when we do announce this, which I think hopefully the end of this month, certainly mid-February, around there, it is a really significant initiative for the company. It's something that we've worked on for a long time. It's something that does leverage those same comparative advantages that I just referred to. When it does land, please understand it in that framing. For those that have followed, I guess, my journey at the company as well, you'll know that one of my sort of universal principles is competitive tension. It also reflects that.
I'm always sort of thinking, certainly in this case, a couple of years down that track and making sure that we've got as much leverage as we can have in negotiating situations in terms of the optionalities to build the company going forward. So that all might sound a little bit cryptic for those people that are trying to pick it apart. The main message I would say is just a bit more patience, understand that it's sensitive, understand that it's important, understand that it will sort of fill out our map, and hopefully in the next month or so, the big reveal will happen, so just give me one sec on the slides. I'm sharing slides now. Thank goodness. Sorry about that.
There was quite some ad-libbing there, as usual, so let me now, yes, that's our map, and we talked about this at the AGM, so I won't dwell here, and our comparative advantages, which I just addressed. Okay. One of the other sort of defining features now with Tivan is that we do have, you know, effectively five projects underway, and they're shown here in terms of this Lasson curve.
The Lasson curve is just a heuristic that I introduced, I think, about a year ago, in fact. I think it's one of the better tools to understand the resources sector. Like, it's actually a reasonably well-defined empirical journey for a lot of companies. Unfortunately, in the critical minerals sector, most companies get into the so-called orphan stage, and they never actually ramp up. Like, the success rate for project delivery in the critical minerals sector is extremely poor, particularly in the last five years.
So you end up with most projects just extending the orphan period and then failing and projects just failing. With Tivan, what we're trying to do is really focus on the Speewah Fluorite Project now as sort of the tip of the spear. That's the project that can take us up the Lasson curve aggressively and towards free cash flow. We're targeting 2027 for that.
And then we're building all of these early-stage opportunities, and we've got three listed there. These are all credible projects. We believe that location advantages, they fit the comparative advantages that we've spoken about, and they can have a material impact on the valuation of the company. And importantly, what we're trying to do is flatten out the Lasson curve. So perhaps a way to think about it is imagine a Lasson curve for each of those projects and then time-shift the Lasson curve by one year, two years, three years, four years, five years. And what you end up, if you aggregate all of those Lasson curves, is actually quite a flat line. And that's the cumulative Lasson curve. And that would be for Tivan if we're successful in our endeavors.
You'd end up avoiding orphan periods, being able to make good decisions in terms of allocating risk capital and continuing on a journey which enables the company to grow with confidence. Part of that is utilizing these joint venture structures, which is, you know, obviously how we're looking to fund the Speewah Fluorite Project because it doesn't burden the head company. JVs will become, I believe, a durable feature at Tivan. Again, this is partly for the uninitiated at Tivan, partly for those that have been following the story in terms of the strategy. It's still very much there and consistent with what I said at the AGM. I think the progress we made last year exemplifies that.
Again, what we're trying to build is a diversified critical minerals company characterized by location, proximity, and really leveraging the comparative advantages which I've articulated. Okay, so that's it for the sort of introductory section. And again, apologies for the IT glitch. I'm going to move now to three project updates. This is specific to some of the projects which are shown there on the Lasson curve. Okay, the first and most important is the big announcement that we made on Christmas Eve at the AGM. I said that we'd be looking to make this announcement before Christmas. It was part of our strategic alliance agreement back in June that we would wrap up an announcement such as this before the end of the year.
I don't think people necessarily could attach, you know, full confidence to that at the AGM or even going into December, just because it was such an unlikely outcome in many ways, to bring one of Japan's most revered and most respected trading houses public on terms in the same year that you've announced a project when that project's only at PFS in a critical mineral that Australia's never produced before. It's such a, I guess, unlikely empirical outcome that there was still, I think, some sort of shock when we made this announcement on Christmas Eve. Now, it reflects an enormous amount of work that we got through.
And the two points that I'd really like to emphasize today, which probably I don't think have been fully captured online with all of the commentary that the deal did receive, and very welcome commentary as well. Like, we were very gladdened to be able to share this announcement and send all our shareholders off with a happy sort of Christmas vibe. The two points that I'd like to emphasize today are that we got through an incredible amount of due diligence with Sumitomo from mid-year through Christmas, and by that, I mean the technical due diligence on the project, things like, you know, the geology, all of the work that we've done in the off-take market, their evaluation of Tivan as a company, including our team, including our project development capabilities, looking through all of the environmental portfolios, obviously coming to understand our traditional owner relationships.
This all culminated in a very important site visit and week in Australia in early November. And for us to have got through that level of technical diligence as a small company working as fast as we were in a new commodity again suggests and tells you, in fact, that the project's viability is extremely strong. For Sumitomo to go public on terms in such rapid time, it's highly uncharacteristic, obviously. And it does represent their first pathway to a critical minerals investment on a global basis, as I said, at the AGM.
So I think shareholders should be able to take a great degree of comfort from the fact that they were prepared to do that. It's a great show of trust, but what it tells you is that a company with fantastic capabilities themselves, who's got vastly, vastly superior information than any other shareholder at the company or anything in the public domain, has signed off on this. And so I think when people step back from it, please appreciate that the amount of work that we got through, our team got through, that they got through, and there are obviously other people involved as well, independent people, potentially other investors.
And so in terms of ticking boxes, it's a huge tick, you know, to get through that level of diligence in that amount of time is very comforting and has inspired, obviously, a lot more confidence and conviction from other parties in and around Tivan as well. The second aspect of the announcement is that, you know, for the first time, you've got some valuation parameters to play with. And obviously, we've never had that before.
One of the reasons to front-load the announcement was to signal, both on behalf of Sumitomo and Tivan, that we'd completed negotiating commercial terms and that we wanted to memorialize them at that point. Because projects mature, geology may expand, like the resource might expand, the project will continue to get de-risked, it'll become more valuable. From our side as well, we obviously wanted to make an announcement to show to the world that this was real. At some point, you want to be able to say, okay, we're satisfied here, both parties, there's a meeting of minds, these are the key economic terms. We weren't in a position to make it a binding announcement out of the gates. No one really can in the critical minerals sector in Australia because you're subject to FIRB approval.
It's such a sensitive sector that we're in, and it involves a foreign company making an investment in real property in Australia, in, again, a critical sector. So we have to work our way through FIRB approval. That's a condition precedent because there's a binding condition precedent that the agreement has to be structured in the way that it was. And so with that said, you've got the economic terms there. And I know there's been, you know, a very active debate online about what that means. So my two cents, and there was a very long post written by one of our major shareholders, which I more or less concur with, is that it reflects an entry point for Sumitomo into the project where they get a share.
And the valuation that they had to come in at is based upon all of that assessment that they did, all of their assessment of off-take markets, commodity prices, their ability to on-sell the product into Asia and to secure supply. And then on top of that, of course, of course, they're looking to earn a return on equity. And when you build in that return on equity, you get to, you know, their valuation for the project. So it's much higher than simply taking, you know, AUD 60 million and dividing it by 22.5%. How high it is, is it's their business, frankly.
But the way to think about that calculation, it's actually quite complex, is that you have to work through things such as what is the likely debt-to-equity ratio in the project, because that will inform the return on equity itself. You can also have debates around whether you should be using real return on equity or nominal, for example. Another important metric is whether the life of the mine will extend from 10 to 15 to potentially 20 years. So all of those things will shape the return on equity which they generate and which they're seeking to achieve, which in turn will inform the implied valuation of the project. So that is the way that, you know, they assessed the project and that we negotiated it.
And, you know, without speaking out of turn at all, you can indeed think of, you know, a fair valuation on the project at this early-stage, in the ballpark of AUD 500 million-AUD 700 million. And so we're sitting here with this opportunity to progress, this incredible opportunity to progress to binding terms over the next couple of months.
We're working away furiously on that. That does include the FIRB approval process. I would flag that there is some risk in that process. Absolutely not in terms of the destination. Of course, Canberra is going to sign off on our JV. You can tell that because they've already given us the international partnership in critical minerals grant. The risk that we face is actually the federal election being called early and the federal government moving into caretaker mode and the treasurer therefore not having the ability to sign off at the right time. So there is some risk of delay, but if it's a late election, we should have enough time to work through with FIRB. And meanwhile, we're working on what's known as long-form JV agreements.
And these are huge agreements which will tie Tivan and Sumitomo together for many years ahead, which is an incredible privilege that we've earned. So we're really excited about it. I was really glad to be able to deliver it. We can now say that the stock, in my view, for the first time I'm going to say this, is demonstrably undervalued. I know the share price obviously went up quite a bit at Christmas, but because we've got a valuation framework on the table from a large, respected investor who has vastly superior information, you can back out from that, even beside all the other opportunities that we have at Tivan, that the stock is now demonstrably undervalued. That's certainly my view. So how do we close that valuation gap up?
It's a matter of the catalysts, which I'll refer to, and just de-risking the project as we work through the closure of the binding deal. That's obviously important, but there'll be various other steps in the months and year ahead, which will progressively de-risk the project and encourage valuations to converge upon theoretical. Part of that will be resource extension. We are very likely now to head down the resource extension pathway this year. We've got biddings about that in the second half of the month. I'd say one of the other big subsets of catalysts on the Speewah Fluorite project is the second last dot point. Active collaboration with government agencies of Australia continues, and even Japan continues. The federal government has, in a sense, spoken about the importance, the national significance of our project.
They've awarded us Major Project Status, the northernmost major project in Australia. I love that data point, and they've obviously come to the table with the International Partnership Critical Minerals grant. So those two things combined do get us a FID without issuing shares, which is an incredible position to be in. But we haven't yet heard from Western Australian government, for example. We haven't yet heard from NAIF, for example, and of course, we're working with all of these parties as well. And when you have early-stage success, such as we've had, it's so conspicuous. Success begets success, so I do think as the year starts to unfold, we'll see other catalysts and drivers for the project. Meanwhile, we have to, you know, tie down home base, as it were.
It's critically important that this is our flagship project, that we stay really focused on it, continue to de-risk it, continue to work as fast and execute as well as we did all the way through last year, resource the company appropriately, and start having the direction of project delivery and aiming as much as we can to stay on that rapid schedule that we've articulated. Again, bearing in mind, I think I said this on Twitter last week, the average delivery time now from discovery to production is 16 years, 17 years in Australia for mining projects, and we're targeting three to four years. So we're working four times faster than the average company. We can sustain that.
Are there risks to schedule? Yes, but it's more to do with us making good decisions about resource extension, for example, or other forms of really optimizing a project. That will be where, I think, you know, so-called delays come, and it might be they're not really delays. This is about us aiming to extract maximum value from the project in the safest way possible for our shareholders and for Sumitomo as our highly respected joint venture partner as well, so this is really where probably 80% of our efforts are.
We're absolutely dedicated to it. We're really thrilled to have been able to share that important news. We've got absolute conviction that we're going ahead to binding joint venture, and of course, Sumitomo wouldn't have gone public as they did unless that was their intention as well, so I won't spend too much time on the other two project updates, but I know that, again, there's a lot of shareholder focus on these two, so at least some new information here.
The first is that with the Sandover Fluorite acquisition that we completed in November, we are very excited about this. It was discussed as part of the JV discussions with Japan, of course. They're excited. I mentioned that at the AGM. Tivan believed it was premature to head in the direction of right of first refusal. I know that question's come up. We want to retain this project as much as we can. We're in a really strong position to do so.
We can add an enormous amount of value early-stage by defining the resource. There'll be a time and a place down the track to consider such things. But the real journey for the next six months is firstly to announce assay results. I hope this will be early next week. Like it's really, really close. We've got really strong conviction that these assay results will be fantastic.
The map today is a new map. It shows you what we did in December, which was to try to gain a really representative sample of the strike length through extensive rock chipping. We will report all 26 assay results, of course, to ensure there's no cherry picking. The strike length is nine kilometers, so we'll get a holistic overview of the mineralogy and the grade right across the resource as early as next week.
Then we'll be in for three to six months, I believe, of resource mapping. That will involve further low disturbance activity out at Sandover in terms of soil samples, really understanding intimately all the strike lengths and the vein systems from the surface. In parallel, we'll be working with Central Land Council to secure what we secured last year at the rest of the Sandover project, which is mineral exploration deed, sacred site, clearance certificates.
Those two are absolutely foundational for us to be able to move ahead to a dual campaign. And we hope to get to a dual campaign later in the year. And that would be the point at which we can start heading in the direction of a dual resource. And I know these questions have been asked. The optimal scenario, and this is, you know, we always plan for the optimal, is that we are successful with Central Land Council and traditional owners in working through these very sensitive processes. And please do understand that they are very sensitive. And if you rush too much, if you put too much pressure on traditional owners, they can erect restricted work areas. There's many, many things that can shut you out of a project in Central Australia, especially.
So finding that right balance through the first half of the year, including me being out there again, frankly, late January, potentially us doing some community works in some key areas around Alice and around the east of the Sandover complex, east of Aileron, building that trust and goodwill, which is always characteristic of how we like to operate on country, while doing all of the necessary low disturbance activity at Sandover to understand what's there. And that includes, very simply, can I say, size estimates. You know, when we get these grades back and the mineralogy back, you're going to have two huge ticks pretty much straight away. On size, you can have a pretty good estimate of size simply through volume by density.
We know the specific gravity of calcium fluoride, and we can tell from historic drilling, obviously, the length and the width of the veins and, in many cases, the depth as well. And with those basic statistics, you can get a very good sense of how big this might be. And we believe at this point on that very, you know, sort of back -of -the -envelope basis, which the ASX would certainly not let us publish, but on that basic approach and with the assay results, we'll get back next week, we're going to have pretty high confidence. And at this stage, we do believe there'll be more calcium fluoride, high-grade, ultra -high-grade calcium fluoride at Sandover than at Speewah. And we know Speewah's a world-class resource.
There is a possibility that this is the best fluorite resource on the planet, and we hope to prove that thesis up in the year ahead, obviously. Now, acknowledged, there's significant disadvantages in terms of the proximity or lack of proximity of this resource to a port, but it's in our backyard. Alice is my hometown. For people that don't know, the NT government is, of course, all over us on this. It's adjacent to a project precinct that we've been working at for 18 months, so again, it is too good to be true.
We're very, very excited about this pathway, and we just need to manage it, so back on the optimal mapping for six months, hopefully drilling job definition, you know, six to 12 months, and we want to come off the Speewah Fluorite project with the project teams having delivered feasibility study, Definitive Feasibility Study.
This is our EPCs and the project engineers that we work with, and the idea is that you've defined your job, you know, at some point in the first half of next year, and the next step is taking the same project guys off Speewah that have built all of these studies and asking them to do a scoping study at Sandover and just redeploying all the lessons learned from Speewah here and then printing a scoping study for this, you know, mid next year sort of thing and just really leveraging the capacities and capabilities that we're building at Speewah here.
Now, Sandover will always be a couple of years behind Speewah, which is optimal anyway. We can't do two things at once. We would never want to flood the offtake market. We want to stay focused on our pathway to cash flow. And we're not suggesting Sandover's project economics will be better than Speewah's. Speewah's fantastic. And we will face, you know, distinctly higher transit costs at Sandover. We know that. And we know, you know, what those numbers are. But we do believe that the savings we'll have, particularly on processing with a super, super high-grade, will be extremely significant.
If the fluorite market globally trends in the way that it has for 15 years, or indeed if there is a price spike because of all the geopolitical stuff that is happening and just the incredible demand from semiconductors and from EV batteries, we're going to be in this, you know, incredible position as the owner of all of Australia's high-grade fluorite to build a second project, you know, with a two- or three-year lag and have two sources of revenue and potentially be able to define an export price for an Australian fluorite industry and to have, yeah, you know, 40-50 years potentially of resource life on our balance sheet.
That's when you're a proper company. You are a very serious company if you're there. So these are both relatively low risk journeys, we believe. This really starts next week. And so what I said before when I was sort of freestyling at the top, the idea that we've got these catalysts near term. There's three or four, I'd say, in the next month. And this is the first one. We don't have the assay results. We don't know for sure, but we're extremely confident and we're looking forward to announcing that next week.
Next is Sandover AI Project. We want to call it the Sandover AI Project just to avoid confusion. And also because, you know, I'm here today with Earth AI. They've invested, yeah, nearly 18 months now of really hard work with us at Sandover, deploying their incredible technology, allowing us the time to work through our big transformation from TNG to Tivan, which involved a lot of healing with the Central Land Council and with the traditional owners.
But we have all the permissions now from NT government. We have a grant from the NT government. We have two grants. And we also have, importantly, the required sign-offs at Aileron where the key outcrop, that whole ridge system has been cleared from sacred sites. Now, that might sound trivial, but for people that work in the NT, I can tell you that landforms are very often the focus of sacred sites and restricted work areas. At Aileron, we are all clear. And that also would carry forward to a mine program. If we were fortunate enough for our high-grade lead and silver to convert into a deposit, we are all clear. And we're five kilometers from a railway. And, you know, we're obviously due east from the Sandover Fluorite Project.
So the potential for this sort of cornucopia of projects to emerge at Sandover is there, but we do not know what is under Mount Byrne. And we will find out to begin with at the end of the month. So again, a second big catalyst. I can confirm that we're absolutely set on mobilizing. This chart is also new because Roman's team is here communicating with the red drill lines. They're two high priority targets. These are the drill holes that we'll start with. The program should last about two months. We expect the geophysical program will be towards the end of that because we can get more value out of the geophysical program once we understand the nature of the mineralogy and what we may have found.
Again, it's lead, silver, but as we go deeper and Roman's team is planning to drill down as far as 600 meters to understand what might be there, we may well find other things. In fact, Roman mentioned today that one of the assays we reported, we neglected to mention that there's 0.8 grams per ton of gold there as well. So we don't know. It's not a lottery ticket though. Like it was a systematic approach that got us to here. We know that the location's incredible for project facilitation and shareholders can now look forward to assay results in Q1 and probably early reads as well. I'll be out there at the end of the month and we are forced in to go ahead.
So those are the three key project updates. You know, our characterization of the Sumitomo JV with great respect and thanks to Japan. I love this phrase they use. They say we're working diligently towards the close of the binding JV. And I can confirm we are working very diligently. It's a lot of work, but we're enjoying it. The mood's great and we're excited to progress. Sandover Fluorite is, in my view, one of the most important achievements of last year. We're looking to firm that up, optimize really across two projects.
There's going to be huge value here for us. There's no question about that in my mind. And of course, Sandover AI project, the ability for us now to go ahead with confidence in the next couple of weeks. So look out for all that. Look out for significant announcements, I think, from government as well in the first quarter. So packaging all that up, that's a very exciting start to the year.
Now, on the corporate side, very briefly, you'll know for those that have been on the journey that I've been very focused on trying to improve the liquidity in the stock. This was announced really at the 2023 AGM. Now, it's much easier to say that than to achieve it. And while we did roll out a series of initiatives, particularly around issuing things like bonus options, we've always been really aggressive with, you know, media.
Obviously, the profile of companies growing each day. We're doing innovative things on social media all the time as well. These sorts of events, you can see the viewership, the viewings just growing and growing. But I'd say, you know, particularly that November, December period, we had a reduction in volatility and trading, even though we were starting to trend higher around the entitlement offer window. That's very typical.
When you've got an entitlement offer open for three months, things naturally go quiet, but then we hit this series of, you know, A-list catalytic events, you know, from late November to Christmas Eve, and that's really caused a really significant increase in trading volumes. It looks like it can be sustained now. I've shown, this is just an update of a chart we've published three times, but obviously it's a pretty explosive move.
It probably understates the improvement in liquidity because this is the number of shares trading, but obviously each share is now worth like two and a bit times more, so if you look at dollar-based liquidity, which is the preferred metric for a lot of hedge funds, the move is really significant, and I'd say it does reflect all of the things that I've listed there, and there's more things to come.
We will have brokers covering the stock, one as early as Q1, I believe. I don't want every broker in Australia to cover us, actually. And I definitely, we're not interested in pay-for-play brokerage days. A corrupt business model. And I've got absolutely no interest in that. But if there are a couple of high-quality brokers, quality research, where they're going to start to cover the stock, of course, that is welcome.
Those pro formas, you know, they tend to circulate and it's easier for people to read and understand a narrative when they've got the surety of broker coverage as well. So I think that can be additive. I've mentioned their block trades. For the eagle eye, they'll see that we, that was our first block trade happened today. It was very well managed. With block trades, Tivan's not formally involved.
It's not our job, but it's an absolutely bullish development in the sense that, you know, we introduced a very willing and active buyer, an account that we respect. We're not in the market for replacement at the moment. They wanted to get set. We've got a few people that we know represent either stale hands or could be an active seller. And so when you've got an overhang of stock and you've got an active buyer, if they come together and are prepared to set a price, then a block trade can happen. And in this case, it removes a significant potential overhang on the stock and you've got a new source of support for the stock as well. So there might be other block trades this year.
I would say if those go through, that's again a source and a different type of liquidity, very bullish for the stock because what it's doing is helping to strengthen the register. So those sorts of things are important. Our education campaign on fluorite will continue, in fact, be redoubled, I would say, because, you know, we've got two projects. We're now in this market dominant position in Australia. We've earned it. We think it's a really incredible and foundational opportunity for us.
And so, of course, you'll hear more about us. But I'd say, you know, liquidity begets liquidity and confidence begets confidence as well. And so we hope and expect that this breakout rally that we've seen now in volumes, it's really probably only the start if we're on track of every confidence that the company valuation gap will close.
There'll be more volumes as we get out of this quiet period. I mean, we've achieved this volume spike through the quietest period of the year. Trading volumes are normally very compressed in December and January. And yet here we are. So let's see how we go as Q1 starts to unfold. But I'd say this is a very, very important development.
And I've always maintained, and I've said this, you know, five, 10 times, that most stocks have these liquidity premium, which means they trade cheap, very cheap to potentially intrinsic value because risk takers can't get in and out of the stock. But now they can, you know, they're starting to. Anyway, we're achieving great things here. And when you have a rally like we saw as well, it's very important that it's sort of endorsed by high volumes.
If you have these big explosive moves and there's no volumes, as a former hedge fund manager, I would be very suspicious. When you see a huge breakout on huge volumes, that's extremely encouraging. So it's a great setup. It's a start. It's a work in progress, but very encouraging. On this topic, I wanted to include this slide because, you know, pretty much every ASX company in the junior mining sector dodges this, and Tivan's really committed to A, transparency and B, alignment. Alignment with shareholders. That was the whole purpose of the TNG activist campaign that I led at the start because we could see from the outside this profound misalignment between management and shareholders. Two years in, I would say, you know, somewhat depressingly that I think it's pretty endemic and systemic in the sector.
When I look around the junior resources sector, nothing is as acute as what I walked into as TNG. But absolutely, it's the case, and I know this because I've had employment consultants to pitch their wares to me and to Tivan, and I can't believe. I really can't believe, given where I came from, the malpractice that goes on in executive comp especially, and it is these performance rights which I railed against from the start.
And so I wanted to explain the way I structured my comp, but also to contextualize it in the sense that our board, our really highly regarded board sat down, you know, mid last year and redesigned and went through everything once again, and even looking at peers, and we all concluded practically independently that peers aren't really that helpful for Tivan because we don't want to follow what they're doing. We don't.
And particularly when it comes to executive compensation, what it invariably involves is a grossly inflated salary, which is not at risk, exit rights when you terminate, again, not at risk, short-term bonuses generally in cash, again, not at risk, or in shares, these performance rights. And how are those performance rights structured? Typically, they come up with some nominal performance hurdle, which will involve starting a drill campaign or delivering a study, something which is easily achievable and which will not in any way be relevant to the share price, may even be bearish.
And they'll achieve this. They'll issue the performance rights to themselves and they'll dump those performance rights on the market. And on the cycle goes. So what this chart shows or endeavors to show is the typical payoff structure for these performance rights. That's the horizontal, so diagonal line.
Now, in a year where the average executive presides over a share price going nowhere, zero, they still get paid these performance rights and they take the new shares and they dump them on the market. And they call that alignment. That's not alignment. And worse, when the share price goes down, they do the same thing. So you've got a situation where the share price is going down, everyone's basically losing except for the executives involved in driving that underperformance. And so the red line especially is it's not a performance right. It's actually a non-performance right. And that is an industry standard. They've got rights for non-performance. So if you look at what I did with my comp, that's the blue line.
You know, this was agreed independently with the board as it should be in the middle of last year where I basically said, listen, I think I'll be able to deliver X, Y, Z into the end of the year. The board was cognizant that I was on this journey having authored the change campaign and taken a lot of risk, financial risk in doing so, but basically what I said to the board was, if the share price doesn't go up, I want nothing.
You know, my not at risk salary, which is very low versus peers, is all I need and all I deserve. If it goes up, then there should be a formula and at some point it should taper off. That's what's happened. It's quite likely now that I'll achieve maximum payout, I would say, based on that formula.
And you know, I'll be paying tax on that and I may sell some shares to finance the tax. But otherwise, I'll be holding the shares. I'm not going to be dumping them. I believe in what I'm doing here and I believe in the company. So I'd ask shareholders today just to step back and reflect on those simple observations. Compare and contrast what we're doing at Tivan to any other company in the sector, particularly that chart.
You'll see again and again, executives just taking the piss basically, endorsed by management and protected by, you know, various other mechanisms, lawyers, employment consultants, tax consultants, creating an industry standard, which I believe is not just suboptimal, it's profoundly unfair and it's profoundly misaligned. So Tivan basically just ripped up that textbook. We've gone our own way on it. It looks highly different.
In the years ahead, you know, I think my own scheme will probably look something like this, and importantly, I think the board wanted to emphasize as well, the team, the project team. We've got an incredibly talented young group of people that we want to keep at the company for the duration, delivering project after project after project. And invariably with these executive compensation schemes, it all just goes to the senior guys and they don't do anything. They lose money for everyone except for themselves.
In our case, it's a highly performance-driven culture for myself, for other senior executives, and then for the project team and for the larger team we'll build this year, very focused on that skin in the game investing rights out in 2026, 2027, 2028, so that they feel that they're participating in the value that they're creating. That's very fair.
It's very appropriate and it's right at the bedrock of what we're building at Tivan, so rant over here, but I'll tell you what, the more I get into this sector, the worse I believe it is, not the better. It's really, really bad. Okay, and our org chart to end on a happy note. Just the new circles, the new people at the team, so big welcome to Maddie in Darwin and to Tammy in Perth. Really fantastic recruits from us. Moving so fast, we don't have photos yet.
We will be building out the exploration component of geology aggressively as a next step. I also, before I leave this chat and get into the Q&A, I just want to mention the importance of Stéphane here as well. We are heading towards project delivery. Stéphane is probably the most renowned project delivery engineer on the planet.
He's deeply involved with us still and at the moment with me in terms of working through project delivery models and conceptualizing how we're going to build it, how we're going to impose governance, how we're going to structure contracts and all the rest of that. And so the team is holistically defined. It's been structured, you know, for a reason, but again, it's all oriented about achieving the goals. And we'll see, I think, many new hires this year. And so for today, just a big welcome to Maddie and to Tammy. Okay, now Q&A. I have gone over a bit on the content part of because that glitched. So I will do my best. The way that we've done the Q&A in the past and today we'll reflect that as well is to ask the questions.
It can be online, can be to our email, group them, you know, have the pseudonymous author of the question listed there to promote that accountability. I'm not going to read all this out. I'm just going to capture the general theme and move on to the next one and aim to wrap up, as I said, within an hour, but I do believe in this important feedback mechanism. I know there's really great engagement with the stock now.
We encourage it. We are accessible. If you've got burning questions, you can write to us anytime. What's instructive here, I think, is the nature of the questions that people are asking, perhaps even more so than my answers because I've already provided a lot of new content today, so that's the framework for these questions. Okay, so a couple of minutes on each topic. Global supply chain, huge topic.
The comments I made at the AGM are instructive here. I really believe that we're going to see major changes in the tectonic plates in Asia under the Trump administration. In terms of the key theme here, asking whether Japan and Korea are serious about responding to that, yes, they already were, particularly Japan, which was one of the reasons we, you know, flagged Japan as true north from the start. But you can see it. You can see it with Project Rapidus and semiconductors and in EVs. You can see it with the Honda-Nissan merger, for example. These things are really, really emblematic of where they're at. They're really dramatic developments in a Japanese context. And of course, these things will only be accentuated by what's happening in China and the US under Trump.
The very quick version on the Trump administration is I do believe these tariffs will be rolled out all the way through the course of this year and beyond. In my view, what will happen is that it will move Japan and Australia closer together over the duration of the Trump administration. And so we're in prime position given our achievements. This was strategic. It was by design, as I said at the AGM. It's not the case that we lucked into this.
There was a lot of foresight involved. And I think where we are now is absolutely ideal in terms of maximizing the disruptions and optionality in the global supply chain, particularly for fluorite. On the Speewah fluorite project, yeah, Andy and Wolfram asking, you know, these are very good questions about how to think about, you know, valuation project delivery, the JV itself.
Briefly to Andy's question, of course, now that we've memorialized the terms, Andy, with Japan, they will not move. If there is resource extension, which we obviously fully expect, their entry point, you know, reflects that potential. If it wasn't there, then there's absolutely no way we would have been able to command the deal terms that we did. And I want to emphasize as well, Andy, that like, you know, we're so fortunate to be working with Sumitomo in the way that we are. It's true.
There were other suitors. There still are, both in Japan and, you know, the largest fluorite company in the world has been knocking down our door. And of course, we're very happy with where we are because it is a true partnership. It's based on trust and respect. And that was characterized in the nature of the announcement that we made.
So we want Sumitomo to make money with us. Of course, we want them to have a great journey as we do with our shareholders as well. A JV partner is someone that you really prioritize all the way through in their diligence, in facilitating their offtake, in understanding their objectives. And so we're absolutely committed to ensuring they have a fantastic journey with us. And of course, the price is the price. On the project delivery model, yeah, just some nomenclature here. As we get into, you know, the construction phase, which is next year, guys, if you can believe that, it's how fast we're moving. The differentiation is between EPC and EPCM. And these are the sorts of things I'm working through with Stéphane and with Mike and with the various contractors we've got involved.
At the end of that is when you move into discussions about owner-operator or an alliance model. These things are all being discussed in terms of capabilities, timeframes. We do want to absolutely leverage the local contractors as much as possible. And we do think we can. So all of that discussion and planning is underway. And it's a parallel workstream. No decisions. It's absolutely premature.
The thing that we've got to get to is a mining plan being approved by the WA government. That's when we can go ahead and commence building, whether it's the road, the camp, or the mine itself. And of course, ahead of that is traditional owner, ILUAs environmental approvals, all of the good stuff that we've been working on for, you know, for 18 months. So we're paralleling everything. And then we are conceptualizing.
It's a very good question what the delivery model looks like and with who. All those discussions are underway. Absolutely. They're not just discussions. They're negotiations. Okay, so next is Sandover Fluorite Project. Now, listen, I've addressed this already very extensively. I knew this was a big area of questions, and because I've already spent quite a lot of time rating the journey, particularly that idea of, you know, mapping for six months, drilling for maybe six to nine, and then straight into a scoping study, I think the journey is very well articulated, and let's see how these assay results print out, and then we'll make some further decisions, but I think hopefully for SoBit, TieInvest, Bower 3, I've already addressed this in the substantive remarks, so I'm just going to push through to the next section.
For diversification of projects, yeah, this is a good question in terms of coming back to the Lasson curve. The aim is to get to that first revenue stream and first profits as we've discussed in 2027. It's a, you know, highly ambitious aim, particularly first half of 2027, highly ambitious. Everything would have to be perfect. And again, if we choose to start to optimize the outcomes, of course, that's going to be a different choice. But if we get to that first revenue profits, you're completely out of capital at that point. I think the Speewah Fluorite Project is the one where you've got the strongest upside because we can look at those assets. That's what we are. We will absolutely not be great. Don't spin up anything out of the Sandover out there.
You'll be in an incredibly good position to build, I think, a second project in a critical mineral that we dominate in Australia and potentially in Asia next to China. That's an incredible opportunity. I think it's within your timeframes, Blue Bagger. In terms of additional projects, listen, we have to wait and see what's beneath Mount Byrne. We don't know. There would obviously be huge changes if there was something really significant. Again, we have to deal with the trucking distance with the road next to the highway. We're hopeful. We can't be expected because it's a true greenfield. You know, exploration program. Please, you know, to understand that. We will endeavor to produce these assay results as quickly as possible. We do know that the starting point is highly unusual.
To have found on the surface grades like this is, you know, it's really, really unusual in Australia. We cannot find historical precedents for the past 50 years. So let's see. Let's see what happens. Project X. Project X has been fast, fast, fast. Absolutely within that timeframe. So there's four. And listen, we basically uncovered two or three of these last year. So who's to say that Tivan can't do more things? Not me, that's for sure. I think we've got an incredibly malleable business model. I look around at our so-called competitors and they can't compete for various reasons. And so there'll be many other opportunities, I believe, to either find or acquire resources in our footprint and leverage future cash flow.
The aim, again, is to progress these OSA projects for two or three years so that when we are standing on our own two feet in 2027, we've got that capability to really kick on and make good decisions. And again, competitive tension. Why stop at five potential, you know, projects? Why not have 10? There's absolutely no reason in my view. These low delta options are so important. Metal prices move up and down. There will be disappointment at some point, not yet, but at some point perhaps. And, you know, having a portfolio of opportunities and being able to rotate quickly, work quickly, that's the future of Tivan. Because we've shown we can add so much value.
The valuation uplift on what we paid at Speewah for where it's now being priced by Japan, all achieved within two years, is so extreme that if you can rinse and repeat that model with our team successfully, of course, you do that again and again and again. So all of that's ahead. And yes, to Ty Invest's question, we might end up with four drilling campaigns this year. Absolutely. And to be clear, Earth AI has got their own drilling equipment at Sandover.
We'd go independent at the Sandover Fluorite project. Same crew at Speewah. And if we're on track with Project X, yes, drilling towards the end of the year, I reckon. So let's see how we go. I won't spend too much time on MASDP because it's not that important, contrary to the nature of the question.
We do increasingly view MASDP as, you know, a marketplace for us where we could sell vanadium batteries. There's still a lot of work to do for federal government, NT government to mature the landscape there. I believe ultimately we'll have to leverage less off new projects such as Sun Cable, but off the existing incumbents, particularly INPEX. If INPEX wants a vanadium battery, that will change the conversation and it would make it much easier for Sun Cable to get going as well.
We are still working closely with Sun Cable. We're absolutely a major proponent at Middle Arm. But contrary to the way the question's phrased, it is absolutely not critical to us. What's critical to us is Sandover Fluorite, sorry, Speewah Fluorite, and then the Sandover complex in general. Project X, I think, will become very important to us.
Of course, the Canadian pathway, we're absolutely still on it. We'll probably make an announcement next week on the test work. It's a slow pathway. It can change due to government. It can change due to technology. We know we've got an incredible resource and we know if we get the first project up at Speewah, the second project will be much easier. It's a long-term option is the way to think about it. Middle Arm for us right now is not on the critical path as such. Finally, these questions about me, very respectfully phrased. Thank you to the people that asked these questions. I can confirm tonight that I am committed to Tivan. I hope that won't come as a surprise to people. It's true.
I did make some offhand comments maybe a year in, six months in about other things I had to do and was planning to do 2026, 2027. It was in a session like this. That was all true. I was not intending to run a mining company when I took control of TNG. But here we are, and you know, life evolves and opportunities change, and the nature of, I guess, my own journey at this company is that, firstly, I've really enjoyed it. It's been really dynamic, and I feel as though there's an opportunity to work with, you know, great people every day, which is exciting for me. I'm also in an environment where I'm learning every day, which is really valuable for me. It's what I enjoy most of all.
But I'd say probably the most durable aspect of the change for me over the past 18 months when compared to the other plans that I had is that I now really believe that in this role, I can have more durable impact than what I was planning to do. And that's because of the opportunities that we've created. I think Tivan's going to be spectacular from here. I really do. And I think the board feels this too. And we can all see, you know, what we're creating. You can sort of touch it now and you can feel it. And the impacts go beyond, you know, just shareholders. It's very important. We're here for shareholders, of course. But we're impacting real people and their lives pretty much every day.
And the opportunity to change for the better the way the mining sector operates, its engagement, lack of engagement currently with traditional owners, these regional remote towns in some cases, which are really struggling. Alice for me, obviously, there's such a strong emotional commitment between me and where I grew up, but also in the Kimberley, you know, we've got so many friends up there now.
They're relying upon us. Project X is going to be the same sort of situation. So I think in this role, I can have a really durable impact. And of course, I want to see it through. So I would say tonight in answer to these questions that another three years of my leadership is effectively assured and that I will sit down with the board at mid-year and we will work through, you know, compensation structuring.
But again, it will be in the spirit of what I alluded to in the slide above, which is it's got to be aligned. It's got to be aligned. And that will reflect right across the team as well. And yeah, one of the other aspects of this question is, yes, absolutely. In that next phase for me, and I'm doing this already, you know, delegating as aggressively as I can, I want to bring through everyone at the company, but including into, you know, leadership positions, you know, potentially remodeling the C-suite, succession, all of those things.
Absolutely. That's part of good governance. And so I'm very committed to that. I think for the next three months, it's about, you know, making sure that all the catalysts that we've got approximate are caught or actioned. And then we're really heading towards this exciting pathway on the core project.
And then we're advancing the blue sky vision. In that model, you've got opportunities to bring people at the team through into much more prominent positions. Of course, we've got the ability to hire. I mean, just to give you a sense, when we advertised for geologist about a year ago and we had like 25 applications maybe, the ads we did before Christmas, I think we had nearly 200 applications. People are absolutely recognizing what we've achieved in the industry. That's giving us really great opportunities to build the team as part of the journey in a, you know, second phase. For me, it will be about building out all of the capabilities, particularly the executive capabilities, so that the burden can be shared and that key man risk continues to dilute. I am diluting it.
It's just, it's a lot when we're achieving so much. And so I wanted to say this tonight. I did discuss this with the board before I made these comments because I don't want at any point this year for the markets or our project partners or our finances or government or our traditional owners to second guess my commitment to the company. They need to absolutely know that I'm here for the duration I am now.
And I'll work through all the contractual details in due course, calmly with the board, of course. But I wanted to share that tonight. So there's absolutely no shadow of a doubt. We've got too much at stake for there to be even a glimmer of doubt about that. So thank you for asking that question. But yeah, hopefully that's put that to bed. So that's it.
I want to wrap by stopping sharing on the screens. If I can, I'll have another tech fail. No. We really struggled tonight with technology, but maybe that's done it. Okay. And to say thanks. Thanks to everyone that's been on the journey. I'm really glad there's that level of excitement over Christmas. And yeah, just encourage you to stay the course, of course.
We do have a lot of new shareholders. There'll be a lot more eyes on us, I'd say, a lot more scrutiny. But I'd say if you're really focused on the stock, you know, try to have a healthy relationship with the stock. You know, I know a lot of people are going to be focused on all this short-term stuff. If you're going to bed worried about it, you probably own too much. You know, don't get levered to it.
Don't get over your skis with it. Enjoy the journey. We're all part of this journey now. That's really what it takes to build a great company, to have those relationships. So take comfort in that alignment. Take comfort in the fact that we've de-risked the company so much last year and that we've got all of this opportunity now and that we've got those comparative advantages. For the Speewah Fluorite Project especially, we now have the ability to say that the valuations have been endorsed by, you know, a legendary company in Japan that has vastly superior information than anyone else. On that basis, I believe the company is now demonstrably undervalued. It's our role to deliver those catalysts, which will help close the valuation gap, particularly over the next couple of months. I look forward to that.
I think it'll be a really, really dynamic start to the year. I expect to be back online, you know, hopefully Q1, April. But as the need arises, if things develop even faster than we think, or if there's a lot of new information to convey, then I'll jump back online. We'll make sure all the IT is even smoother. But for now, thank you. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for your engagement. And we will get back to work. Okay, good.