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Wayne Bramwell, MD and CEO of Westgold. Paul Huet, Executive Chairman and Managing Director of Karora. And he is joined by Oliver Turner, Executive Vice President of Corporate Development. I'll now hand you over to Wayne.
Thanks, Shane, and welcome everyone to today's webinar. As Shane said, I've got Executive Chairman and CEO Paul Huet in Toronto online, and Oliver Turner, Executive Vice President, Corporate Development. We'll dive straight into today's presentation, and this is an important day in terms of building a new 400,000 ounce brand new Australian gold producer. Straight to slide six. This merger has scale. It has funding. It's got enhanced capability. And most critically, the expanded business is fully leveraged to the gold price. Together, bringing Karora and Westgold together, it makes perfect sense to me. We bring together 30 million ounces of resource and 3 million ounces of reserve. We think the opportunity to expand that reserve number is very strong. We talk about diversified gold production, and now the expanded business really has two legs across two of the most prolific gold camps in Western Australia.
Critically, the new business is very well funded, with over AUD 160 million available to it to fund the growth that we see. We put together two teams which, in some sense, are very, very similar. Karora owner-miners as our Westgold. Bringing those two teams together, equipment and fleets, gives this new business a lot of scale and a lot of opportunity to ratchet the growth up growth within the business. There are very few 400,000-ounce gold producers on the ASX or the TSX. This new business has the potential for a significant market rerating. Slide seven. The strategic rationale. I'm gonna speak to the detail in the upcoming slides, but on the next few slides, I'll just talk to the headlines. This combination of Karora plus Westgold creates a new leading mid-tier Australian gold producer.
This business will be fully exposed to the gold price and choose your own adventure there 'cause the gold price is moving every day into uncharted waters. There is material synergies between the two businesses, and both Westgold and Karora have shown that they can drive cost out. We see collectively the opportunity to drive more cost out of this business, which will go straight to the bottom line. Diversified production in the Tier 1 jurisdiction. In some sense, we're bringing Beta Hunt and Higginsville home. So this will be an Australian company with Australian management with Australian assets. And I'm sure Paul will talk to that point later in the slide deck. Expanded organic growth pipeline. We are going to be spoiled for choice here, and our real appeal in this deal is what we've seen in Beta Hunt.
The opportunities to add reserve ounces to this mine is significant, and we will talk to that during this presentation. The balance sheet will remain strong. Again, Westgold and Karora have both been restructuring their businesses over the last two years for exactly this time. We're both in good shape, and this will continue. Overall, the new business will have an enhanced capital markets profile. I mean, both of us sitting around 250 thousand-200 thousand ounces are interesting, but put it together and you've got a business of 400,000 ounces per annum, that is internationally investable. I'll switch over to slide nine and hand over to Paul.
Thanks, Wayne. What a privilege and honor to be here alongside you here tonight. Very exciting to merge these two companies together. Very exciting day for both our set of shareholders. Just to talk about some of the merger summary here. The proposed combination is 50.1% Westgold with 49.9% Karora. Total consideration, I'm not gonna read through every bullet, but it's about CAD 590 for the shareholders. And the leadership and governance, we're going to add to the already strong Westgold board. We're gonna have Leigh Junk, who's been our Managing Director in Australia, and Shirley In't Veld will join the board immediately. I will remain on as an advisor for initially six months, and if that is required to be extended, Wayne and I will decide at the time. We will do whatever is best for our shareholders. Regulatory approvals are customary for Karora shareholders to get 66%.
Look, and I just wanna talk about real quickly, we have been bringing a couple of them and discussing some wall-crossing, some shareholders. I'll just talk about one and, specific one, Eric Sprott, who's been a very long-time shareholder of Karora since the very beginning. He's fully endorsed this deal, loves the, the exciting opportunity that we're talking about between 400 thousand-450 thousand ounces a year, in a completely unhedged position as this thing unfolds. As soon as we close it, it'll be completely unhedged. Very unique situation. One of the things that we had to take into consideration was remaining listed on the TSX for a time at least, at least for six, six months to a year. We'll decide with our shareholders. We'll see how the liquidity goes. That's something we're gonna be monitoring really quickly.
But something we both agreed was very important to the deal right at the onset. We have a break fee together of about CAD 40 million. We believe in this deal together. So what we're looking for, both Wayne and I, are not to collect a break fee. We're looking to get this deal across the finish line. And we're quite excited about all the work we've done together with two amazing teams. And look, the proposed timing on this is probably somewhere middle or end of July. So another quick time frame, but we're quite excited for the next couple months as we continue to deliver this to the end line here. So back over to you, Wayne.
Thanks for that, Paul. Jumping forward to slide 10. This business will change significantly. On closing of this deal, it is immediately cash flow accreted. 400,000 ounces per annum, with no hedging in place, that is the appeal. Our strategy remains the same. We're focused on, on free cash flow, and this gives us an opportunity to enhance that. How we will speak about the business going forward actually gets simpler. We'll end up with, a business which we'll talk to the northern part and the southern part. And those two, gold fields themselves are addresses which we're very happy to operate in. Slide 11. All reserves and resources. 13 million ounces of resource, 3 million ounces of reserve. We absolutely are committed to growing that reserve number very quickly. And what we've seen within Beta Hunt, which is the price, gives us the opportunity to do that.
Slide 12. Significant mine life and growth potential. I'll leave this slide to hang here in terms of how we'll compare to our peers. I mean, Westgold and Karora, as I said, at the bottom end of the curve, start to move up towards the top and can start to stand head and shoulders alongside some of the biggest names in the Australian gold sector. Key point, this thing will have international and global investment appeal. Slide 13. We talk about culture and we talk about people. I mean, our experience with the Karora team in the last few months has been very, very easy in some sense. I mean, we're the same group of people. We've got a very similar corporate experience.
Corporately, both businesses have been restructuring over the last several years to get to a point where they can do something transformational. Hence, this is the time. We very much welcome Leigh and Shirley to the board. And with Paul remaining as an advisor, we can see continuity going forward. Jumping over to slide 14 and back to Paul.
Thanks, Wayne. Look, this is probably one of the most exciting slides that I get to share about this entire deck here. The potential for the synergies here are amazing. They're textbook synergies. Years ago, many of you who know me and know my background know that I worked for Newmont at the Midas Mine for seven years. I was part of a very big team that was with Newmont and Barrick that looked at the consolidation that eventually formed Nevada Gold Mines. The reason I bring it up is those synergies that formed eventually in Nevada Gold Mines were about 500 million annually back then at a 53% lower gold price. What we're looking at here on an annual basis could be in the neighborhood of AUD 60-AUD 70 million every year. And this starts right at the top here.
Right at the board level, we're combining this board. We look at our Perth office. We're right around the corner from each other. The synergies here, again, are textbook. We're able to reduce the G&A in North America. I had the privilege of going to each operation with Simon and Wayne with a couple of my guys here recently. What I saw was absolutely amazing. Combined with our two mills, we're gonna have five processing plants here. One of the advantages we have here is Westgold, as many of you know, used to be a contractor. Now they're owner-operator. But as a result of that, they own a tremendous amount of gear. Look, let's face it, buying equipment today is expensive. They have about AUD 200 million of equipment.
Combined with all the new equipment that we have bought at Karora, that makes a heck of a company. We, we own we have about 30 pieces running our operation. So you think about the lead time to buy a new piece of equipment, a new piece of gear, AUD 1.5 million, AUD 2 million. But then the lead time on this, it could be anywhere from 12 months, 18 months, all the way to 24 months. We have all that in front of us. A great opportunity, opportunity to unlock some of these things like Spargos that we've had in front of us, to add some drills into the area over at Higginsville. The synergies here for me are just unbelievable and something that I'm gonna continue to talk about day in, day out because they truly are some of the amazing synergies that will turn back into shareholders.
In fact, I was on a call earlier today with our very large shareholder. He's probably number two of our shareholder, Eric Sprott. He brought this up to me even in the discussion. Look, Paul, he said, "Synergies for me as a shareholder return right back into a drill bit or right back into value, on a per-share metric." That's what we're looking at here. The combination here is absolutely outstanding with the merger of these two companies at this point in time. It's gonna be hard to hold me back on the passion I have with this synergy 'cause I've lived it before. I watched this thing in a previous lifetime.
Now to be more part of it and actively engaged in it, I can tell you that I'm pretty excited about what the future holds for both of us, for this one company, but more importantly, for all of our shareholders together. Over to you, Wayne.
Thanks, Paul. Slide 15. Five processing plants, seven operating mines, and 3,200 km of tenements. This business will have scale to accelerate cash flow, free cash flow across a much broader package of assets. You know, we have been speaking to Westgold as being a portfolio company. Well, now the portfolio's got bigger. Slide 16. I won't talk to this in detail, but again, for those who want it, that gives a snapshot of the four legs within the business. Well, the two legs, both north and south. Our Murchison operations in the Bryah will start to rename as north. Beta Hunt and Higginsville will start to talk about as south. A much more simplified story with a lot more capability to deliver free cash. Slide 17. If there is ever a slide that tells you the rationale for this business, it's this.
By putting these two companies together, the expanded Westgold can supercharge its free cash flow. Seven operating mines, four projects in development with Great Fingall, coming on in 2025. The Fletcher Zone at Beta Hunt excites us a lot. We've been up close and personal with this ore body. We've seen it. We know what it can deliver. We've got multiple mines which we can bring, bring back on. I'm happy to say being able to reprioritize some of these things gives us broader opportunities to focus on grade, not volume. Jumping forward. Slide 18. Westgold's growth projects have scale, grade, and longevity. And why is that? Because we've drilled them. Our team has shown the value of investing in drill meters. We drilled spent AUD 19 million last year on drilling these assets. We will spend AUD 25 million on drilling this year. What has that done?
It's seeing Bluebird South Junction expand, Big Bell Deeps now, or Big Bell as a mine has 16 years of mine life, and Great Fingall starts the game with eight years. We can see the value of investing drill meters. Slide 19. And really, this segues nicely for Paul in terms of the assets that Karora owns.
Thanks, Wayne. Over to slide 19. You can see on the far left, first and foremost, our flagship, I always call it the beast, Beta Hunt. Look, it speaks for itself. We've got about 7 km of strike. And, and most of you will recall that in the beginning, Beta Hunt had this massive royalty with Maverix. We've been drilling this thing for, about three years. Even though I've been here almost 6 years, we weren't drilling it all at the beginning. And, and you can see that. I'm just gonna flip back and forth to two slides here. But if you go to slide 20, you have a really good chart on the right-hand side. And you can clearly see the resource and growth we've had over a, a four-year period. This is a result of us being able to drill after we renegotiated the royalty at Beta Hunt.
Once we renegotiated the royalty at Beta Hunt, we really got busy putting in dollars into our own asset and investing into Beta Hunt. Through the drill bit, we found the Fletcher Zone. We found Cowcill. We found Larkin. We found Sorenson. All these are new areas. Many of them have yet to be included in this massive resource. You look at our September 2023 sitting at about, at the company, total resource sorry, just Beta Hunt. Just Beta Hunt. Not as a company. 2.7 million ounces. And again, what's really critical about that is that new Fletcher Zone or Cowcill or Sorenson, which all appear to have better grade than what we've been mining for the last five years. The grade we've been mining for five years has consistently held at 2.6 g. Everything we see from the drill bit, we've been showing our shareholders.
We show everybody Fletcher. We show you the results of Mason, of Cowcill, of Sorenson. They're all better grades than what we have mined for the last five years. So when you think about Beta Hunt and the size potential it could be, look, we're up close to 3 million ounces now. We started with 400,000 ounces. And just as a quick reminder, we started with 80,000 ounces of 2P reserve. We've poured over 600,000 ounces of gold as a company here. I'm back on slide 19. So Beta Hunt, you can see, a long section. And over on the middle slide, you can see Spargos. We had bought that originally for AUD 5 million. We mined the open pit. There is an underground there. This is one of the advantages of those synergies I was talking about.
Having spent all that time with Wayne and Simon and their GMs, the mine site, you could clearly see the fans, the power stations, the equipment that we're gonna be able to take from their assets, from their sites, bring them over to Spargos and start that mine up. All we'll need is people. It's already permitted. It's ready to go. Spargos is a matter of turning the key on, getting the right gear, and adding it into our portfolio. Mount Henry, well, there's a tremendous opportunity. That area, we have not drilled it because we've been very, very focused, as most of you know, at Beta Hunt. But Mount Henry's got 459,000 ounces of 2P reserve. When you look at this entire portfolio and you combine this together with the Westgold assets, this new company has tremendous growth opportunity in front of ourselves.
All we have to do is continue drilling. And again, I flip back to that slide 20. There's no better result than seeing that bar chart of those ounces increase year after year after year. The best return we've seen for our shareholders and making money for them has been through the drill bit. And that's come as a result of a couple things. The renegotiation of the royalty at Beta Hunt, which we reduced by approximately 40%. The elimination of the Morgan Stanley royalty at Higginsville, which was handcuffing this district for years, like three decades. The royalty at Higginsville had been hurting people for years. It is completely unlocked now, allowing us as a pro forma company to go back in there and really use this area.
Then when we talk about Spargos, and that one's already drilled out, Mount Henry, that's in front of us. It's we've got it in our crosshairs and certainly an area we're gonna be focusing on with Leigh and Wayne as a new company. So those are slides 18, 19, or sorry, 19, 20 together, Leigh. Over to you on 21.
Thanks very much for that, Paul. We'll jump straight to slide 21. Westgold's added cash for the last five quarters. In some sense, Karora's turnaround has actually started beforehand in a very similar position. What we are doing here, we are adding together two cash flow-generating entities. And this is our key driver, free cash. Slide 22. We are well funded to execute growth. Again, the key to the success of the expanded Westgold is having the financial resources going forward. This is how it looks going forward. And with AUD 160 million of opportunity or liquidity, the company will come out of the boxes in a very strong financial position. Slide 23. Back to you, Paul. Or actually, this is, Oliver Turner will step in at this point.
Yeah, exactly. Thanks, Wayne.
Yeah, thank you, Wayne. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much. So one of the key things, as we all know in the markets today, is scale and relevance in order to capture some of that generalist capital that we're all trying to draw into the sector. And I think the left-hand side of slide 23 captures it very, very well. You look at the pro forma market cap of the new enlarged Westgold, the pro forma company up at AUD 2.2 billion. And one of the first things that jumps out at you other than the fact that it's now well in the top ranks of scale in terms of size of mining operators in Australia, but also every other name of that side is included in the ASX 200.
So when you start to think about the index inclusion game, which dictates a lot of capital flows these days, there will certainly be index buying for this entity from the ASX 200, of course, additional for the ASX 300, as well as the GDX over in North America. As we mentioned, we'll be maintaining a dual listing for this company. So expect increased buying on the TSX as well. Switching over to trading liquidity, you know, most stocks are extremely liquid for their size and scale. But when you combine them together, it gets even better with about AUD 13 million per day in annual trading liquidity, which comes back to my original comment in terms of attracting those generalist investors that demand the capability to move in and out of names. So that's a great place to be.
Over on the right, we've got 12 analysts covering us. We've got Karora's great coverage combined with a good analyst that cover Westgold and will now be covered by 12 analysts on both sides of the Pacific. So truly round-the-clock coverage from on both exchanges, you know, generating lots of good content for, for investors to digest. So really pleased about that. Switching over to slide 24. Paul mentioned a lot of the synergies that we have operationally. Well, we certainly have a lot of synergies when it comes to sustainability in our approach towards ESG, which of course is an increasing importance in, in today's capital markets. Westgold on the left-hand side of the slide has done a phenomenal job of installing over 82 megawatts of hybrid power and gas, solar, and of course, batteries, across their operations.
This has managed to reduce diesel consumption by close to 40 million liters per year and carbon emissions by 56%. And of course, all this is accompanied by significant cost savings. So it really is a win-win situation. And what we're trying to do at Karora is replicate the success at Westgold. And of course, new Westgold shareholders and pro forma shareholders will benefit from both of these initiatives. At Karora, what we've done is we've signed a power purchase agreement to basically engage line power into our Higginsville operations, which makes 7 MW generator redundant, reducing diesel just like Westgold have done and reducing carbon emissions. We set an initial goal of 20% reduction by 2030, and about 11%-13% of these emissions are tackled right out of the gate. And of course, all of this comes with cost reduction.
Really, a lot of sustainability-focused and emissions-focused synergies across the asset base. We're really looking forward to working with Westgold and combining these assets together. I'll pass it back to you, Wayne.
To that . Slide 25. A strong cultural fit. We speak to culture a lot in Westgold. And, and in terms of integrating the Karora team, they're the same people and the same culture. We think this integration is gonna go very, very well because our, our corporate history, our, professional histories are very, very similar. The Karora team, strongly exposed to underground mining, the Westgold team, that's what we do. We do our best work in the dark. Slide 26. Really, this is the closing slide, today. And if, Paul and I and Oliver seem a little bit fried, that's because we've been working on this quite intensively. This merger delivers transformational growth. Westgold has been quite clear about, our views of, M&A. And our M&A metrics has been clearly stated.
We've been looking for bolt-ons that can deliver better than 85,000 ounces of production a year and can lower the group all-in sustaining cost. The Karora acquisition does that. Karora and the Western Australian assets guide towards 170,000 ounces-200,000 ounces per annum at a lower, all-in sustaining cost. Put that together with the expansion of our business and the focus on, on grade, not tons, we've got a pretty powerful machine. This business, the new business, the new expanded Westgold, will be globally investable. We're gonna have a massive, resource base and, and which to, look for the next assets, on the next suite of mines. And we're gonna have the resources to do that. This is about Aussie assets with an Aussie management team across two of the most prolific gold camps in Western Australia. Our focus won't be diluted. It'll actually be increased.
The business is fully leveraged to the gold price with nil fixed forward sales. I mean, certainly for a North American or a European audience, that is a key selling point for this. And there are very few opportunities at this scale, on the ASX. We are going to be spoiled for choice. And we are as we've spoken to in the past, the expanded business will take the same model. We see drilling as an investment, not a cost. We will very quickly throw rigs into Beta Hunt once this, this deal closes. And with the Karora team and our team working together, the ability to add ounces quickly to that orebody is, is real. Paul made a very good point. And I'll, I'll reiterate it. The Beta Hunt system is 7 km long. There is infrastructure across 4 km of that shallow system.
There are 3 km out of the 4.7-km system, which are effectively undrilled. At the end of that 7-km system, there is one high-grade drill hole that's never been followed up. So in terms of being able to add ounces to this business and to this mine, we are very confident that if you invest the drill meters, you'll get the return. Synergies for us, look, the potential synergies here are real. But again, that's not what drives us. Adding resource ounces and growing this business to supercharge the cash flow is what it's about. And where the gold sector is at the moment, scale is important. And what this business can do is leverage a larger scale. We are confident, and we've shown the business or the well, the market, that Westgold can drive cost out.
We can certainly see the opportunities to drive cost out of the Karora business. With a larger-scale business, we can play to that scale and continue that trend. Enhanced capital markets profile. Well, the proof will be in the pudding here. But certainly, the North Americans will take a different view to the expanded Westgold as will the Europeans. The Australian investors should also welcome that these Aussie assets are coming back to an Aussie company with an Aussie team. And we absolutely welcome the Karora team back to the expanded Westgold family. With that, I'll really, Paul, and maybe there's some closing comments before we jump to the indicative timeline. But look, if I sound excited and Paul sounds excited about this, it's for good reason. This is a much bigger business with a much more talk to the gold price. It's fully leveraged to that.
Every day, we look at that gold price moving, and we get more excited about the rationale for doing this.
Yeah, look, I, I just wanna reiterate what Wayne said here there. It's, it's hard to contain your emotion and not get passionate about this. This is exactly what companies try to do and strive to get to. We've been watching Wayne very closely for two years. And what he's managed to do in two years has been nothing short of amazing. We were there ourselves about five, five and a half years ago. So it's impressive to see these two stories finally combined together to create this, this 400+ thousand ounces a year. And I, I, I can't help but not just say that one of the advantages we're always going to have over anyone else is our nickel optionality.
That's certainly something we've got over AUD 1 billion worth of nickel as a pro forma company drilled out here and some of the best grades you're ever gonna find on the planet. So look, I, I had the privilege of watching Wayne present a couple of years ago or even about a year ago. And I, I've always been amazed watching him stand up at the podium. And he's always said something that's caught my attention. And I've said this to my board. I said, "He stands up there, and he says, 'We make no apologies for shutting down mines that make no money. And we're here to make money.'" And what an attitude to have to lead this company into the future as we continue to run it from Australia.
So for us and my shareholders, very excited to be alongside here, with Wayne, with that board, with the team. Very exciting future together.
Our slide is the indicative timetable. It's mapped out here. If it all goes to plan, this transaction will close on the July 19th. As I said, I'll close with one point, very much looking forward to working with the Karora team. The culture is similar. The people are similar. We're all focused on one thing, generating free cash and, and turning this business into something much larger than it is now. Thanks very much. We'll just open up the floor to questions. Shane?
Thanks, Wayne. Anybody who's got a question, please feel free to type it into the question box on the webinar software. The first question comes from John. What was the timeline for the process noting that RMS was in until three weeks ago?
Paul, do you want me to take that one?
Sorry. I didn't hear the question. It was, what was the apologize?
What was the timeline for the process noting that RMS was in exclusive DD with Karora until three weeks ago?
Yeah. So look, we were unable to speak to anybody during the RMS due diligence. Obviously, that, that didn't come to fruition. But the truth is, we've been looking at this for over two years. I, I went to all their assets, Westgold's assets, on a 10-day tour myself with our former MD and visited every mill, every underground mine. It was quite impressive. At the time, it was just a, a different timing in Karora's history and the company's history before Wayne was there. So it's certainly something we've been monitoring for a very long time.
Thank you. The next question is from Philip. Can you please explain Westgold's all-in sustaining cost and Karora's all-in sustaining cost and the new projected AISC?
Thanks for that, Shane. And hi, hi, John. If you go into the appendix on slide 29, we basically there's a pro forma snapshot for Westgold, Karora, and the and the large Westgold. Really talks to the overall all-in sustaining for the group. Again, that's pro forma as it sits now. That's before we start to drive cost out of this thing.
Thank you. Your next question comes from John. Could you please provide some granularity on synergies? How do you actually realize 5% of 60% of your operating costs over the 10-year estimated operating life?
Yeah.
Thanks again.
Go for it, Paul.
Yeah. Look, again, this is something I've been part of not once, not twice, but three times in my lifetime. Even when I first got here at Karora, the first thing we did, those of you who remember RNC when we took it over, it was a struggling asset, struggling company. We were having to pay each vendor with credit cards and paying cash. The first thing we did once we raised money and we had a balance sheet is we met with our top 20 vendors, and we renegotiated contracts. Again, I was part of the Newmont Nevada Gold Mines association. The opportunity that presents itself here by buying in scale is real. It—you can buy cyanide, balls for the ball mill, liners, bolting supplies, ventilation supplies, explosives.
When we're buying together for 400,000 ounces a year, there is absolutely no doubt that there is buying power. Hence why a lot of the majors, like, look at Nevada Gold Mines, why it's formed and the synergies exist. Like, 5% is probably even low. We were targeting 15% back then. So, I think there's tremendous opportunities. You look at G&A right at the top. That's an easy one. But the, the synergies on the costs and driving out those costs are without doubt absolutely real. And they will come as we continue to meet with vendors and we continue to drive out our processes.
Thank you. There's a follow-up question there from John, out of the synergies. What is the annual estimate required to maintain the TSX listing in terms of cost?
Thanks again, John. That's about AUD 500,000 a year to maintain that listing.
That's correct, Wayne. Yep.
Next question from Andrew. Can you talk about the potential to grow to 500,000 ounces per annum? Is there still potential for the Westgold assets to grow to 300,000 ounces per annum? And is the 200,000-ounce-per-annum outlook for Karora likely to still be the plan?
Thanks again, Andrew. Look, we've purposely been conservative in what we've said here. I mean, this, the expanded Westgold post-merger comes out of the box with a 400,000-ounce production scale. Getting it higher is real. And where will the additional ounces come from? As I said, this whole merger has been largely about Beta Hunt. And we can see the being able to lift the tonnage and the grade at Beta Hunt after we invest some drill meters. The other things which will push this thing towards the numbers you're talking to here - and I'm, in some sense, won't say that number but absolutely believe in it - is things like Great Fingall. Great Fingall is going faster than we think. And it starts with an eight-year mine life. And we've conservatively estimated Great Fingall's production scale at 30,000 tons a month at 5 g per ton.
Big Bell Deeps, it's getting bigger. Again, ultimate run rate, 1 million-1.2 million tons per annum with the grade coming up. One of the ones that we're most excited about, and the market will see information about this soon, is our Bluebird Mine. The Bluebird Mine started at 250,000 tons per annum. It's now running at close to 500,000 tons per annum. Our expectation is we can get this mine, once we bring South Junction on, to something it looks like 750,000 thousand to 1 million tons per annum at better than 4 g. So the focus across the whole business will be about grade. Again, it's making our bigger mines bigger. And Beta Hunt certainly adds to that thematic.
Thank you. Your next question comes from James. Would you paint a picture of how you see production evolving over the next five years if you have hinted at growth? What did you see in your DD to be confident of in this growth?
Jamie, thanks for that. Very, very good question. As Paul said, look, both of these companies have had a long relationship and, and have been looking at each other for a couple of years. You know, we were comfortable with the assets. And, and Paul seemed more comfortable with ours. I guess what really turned it for our team was looking at the most recent drilling across Beta Hunt. The Fletcher Zone is an analogy to the Western Flanks system. And that mine, when you get up close to it, wow. We are very confident we can add ounces to the reserve there very, very quickly. Most importantly, Westgold will have six additional underground drill rigs to deploy very shortly. And post-closing of this deal, the bulk of those six underground rigs, they're going to Beta Hunt.
Thank you. The next question comes from Alex. It's, "Can you explain how you got to a AUD 29 million valuation for SpinCo?
Throw that at you, Paul.
Yeah. I'll take that one. Yeah, happy to. So the composition of the valuation for SpinCo includes our 22% ownership in Kali Metals, which is approximately, based on the last closing price on Friday, about AUD 14 million. We also have CAD 5 million in Canadian cash to get that business operating. We have a 1% lithium royalty. And then the contingent payment due on the sale of Dumont from Waterton upon that eventual sale, which is up to AUD 30 million, which we do expect over the course of this year. And that makes about CAD 0.15 on a risk-weighted basis. Thanks.
Thank you. I'll hand back to Wayne at the moment for any comments.
Paul made a comment before which, again, I didn't even touch on, the nickel optionality within this package. This we speak to this or I speak to this, and we speak to this as a gold deal. But the nickel optionality, though not fashionable just at the moment, is a latent opportunity within this, this business. I think Brendan's got a question.
Last question from Dave. "Can you talk about the Lakewood and Higginsville Mills, expansion plants and where ore is directed?
Well, Paul, do you wanna speak to this one? Because the, I can talk to it.
Yeah.
You can speak to it in more detail.
Yeah. So let's, let's talk about the Higginsville one first. Look, when we bought Higginsville, we, we put in quite a bit of money over the last couple of years investing in the neighborhood of over AUD 10 million. We had looked at Higginsville, many of you will recall, as an expansion. We did all the engineering work to do that expansion to increase Higginsville by 1 million tons per annum. All that work, by the way, is still ready to go, ready for us to use as a combined company. So if we decide that we need extra capacity from Mount Henry or the Selene area, we could still do that expansion at Higginsville, which is gonna be very critical to some of the decision-making we do going forward as a company. Now, Lakewood, when we acquired Lakewood - what was it?
A year, a year and a half ago, we've also spent quite a bit of money on capital at Lakewood as well. It was around 800,000 tons per annum. We're increasing that to about a 1.2 million ton per annum. So together, those two mills are sitting at about a 2.8 million ton per annum with a detailed engineering study already complete that we paid a lot of money to do to increase that capacity by another million tons per annum, giving us, the new company a lot of flexibility.
Thank you. I'll now hand over for any closing comments from Wayne and Paul.
Thanks for that, Shane. Look, nothing further from me. We've got a lot of work to do. This deal has got three months to settle. That gives us time to basically start to dive deeper into what the opportunities are within this expanded business. And let's be clear, the opportunities are extensive. The expanded Westgold now has a strategic footprint in the Southern Goldfields and bolt that to the dominance we have in the Murchison. And this business has some opportunity to get much bigger and generate a lot more free cash.
Look, we've captured pretty much everything, both Wayne and I. It's great that we were here shoulder to shoulder. Just in closing, I wanna take a moment and thank all the Karora people. More importantly, I wanna welcome the Westgold people to our family. This is gonna be a very exciting time as we grow this together. And we're very excited to do this together. So on behalf of myself, the board of directors of Karora, we welcome every member of the Westgold team, right down to the men or women driving the trucks. We welcome everybody. So we're very excited. We've got a lot of work to do, as Wayne said, over the next three months. And we're gonna be heads down like we have been in the past to get this to the finish line. Thank you.
Thank you, everybody. That concludes today's call. Thank you for joining.