An update on the Rollaston South project, including the recent resource upgrade and next steps for development. This session is in listen mode only. Please type any questions into the chat, and we will cover them at the end. Anthony, over to you.
Thank you, Simon, and thank you, everyone, for joining the first Yari Minerals webinar on the Rolleston South Coal Project. Today is a fantastic day for Yari Minerals to present to our shareholders and prospective shareholders the Rolleston South project. Summarizing the Rolleston South project, it is a large resource with a very high-quality grade thermal coal, which has potential to be upgraded to semi-soft coking coal to move into both the thermal and the metallurgical coal markets. We acquired this project about one month ago with a resource of 78.9 million tons. Within the last month, we have remodeled the inferred resource by taking two open-file coal seam gas wells, and we doubled that resource by 91% to 151 million tons of coal. That was done at zero cost, with the only cost being remodeling the resource.
Once upgrading the resource estimate, we are now defining our inaugural drilling campaign, which we anticipate to complete this year. The design of that program will be twofold. Firstly, to continue to grow the resource, but secondly, and most importantly, is to increase the resource categorization from inferred to indicated mineral status. That will allow us to complete pre-feasibility and feasibility studies and to move to the pathway of moving with the aim to a resource reserve estimate. In addition, during that drilling program, we're going to take samples to complete metallurgical test work to prove the potential for semi-soft coking coal, which will significantly improve the valuation of the resource. The Rolleston South Coal Project, it's located in a Tier 1 coal jurisdiction in the Bowen Basin in Queensland.
Rollaston is a high-quality producing coal region currently operated by Glencore and the Sumisho joint venture with UMD Mining at the Meteor Downs and Rollaston South mines. The Blackwater Rail system ends at Rollaston, and from the resource at Rollaston South to the two rail loading loops on the Blackwater Rail system is directly 41 kilometers by state sealed highway. That sealed highway runs right through the middle of the Rollaston South Coal Project, which then gives the project access to high-quality infrastructure on the Blackwater Rail system that goes straight to the Port of Gladstone to allow for export of both thermal and potentially semi-soft coking coal products. Here we have a schematic of the location area. You can see in the yellow, we have the markers for both the Meteor Downs and the Glencore Rollaston mine, and in purple, we have sketched out where the Blackwater Rail system is.
There are two rail loading loops, probably the most important for us being the Meteor Downs rail loop, which is located on State Highway, which runs right through the Rollaston South project via the town of Rollaston. The Rollaston area is in the Bandanna Coal Belt. It's a really high-quality coal. It's plus 6,000 kcal/kg for calorific value, 0.3-0.4% sulfur content, and it has a very high energy content, which requires only mining, crushing, and sizing with no washing involved. It's a very efficient coal to mine, and currently both Glencore and Minerva are mining and not washing that coal, which is really important because it reduces your capital and operating costs. However, if you do want to produce a semi-soft coking coal, it may require some washing to increase the swell factor.
In this opportunity that we've acquired, we've acquired a high-quality resource in a top-tier location with access to infrastructure with potential and large significant resource growth. This is quite unique for a company of the size of Yari Minerals. Why coal? Coal, we all know that global demand is increasing. It's not going down anytime soon. With the advent of AI and data centers and the growth in India and China, they're continuing to expand coal-fired power generation, and also steel consumption is going up. There is going to be a need for both thermal and metallurgical coal, and quite importantly, the high-quality coals, which the Rolleston Coal Belt has. Queensland. Queensland, the coal industry is massive. As you can see there, Queensland produces and exports almost 250 million tons per year of both thermal and metallurgical coals.
It generates AUD 83 billion to the gross regional product of Queensland and exports of some AUD 70 billion per year, generating coal royalties of AUD 10 billion to the Queensland government in 2023. It's a huge sector. We don't think it's leaving Queensland anytime soon. Moving on to Queensland as a Tier 1 jurisdiction. Since the Christoph Ali Liberal National Party government was elected in 2024, they've approved over 30 new mining leases. Queensland is open for business, and the coal sector in Queensland is open for business. The snapshot of Yari and the Rollaston South project acquisition. The acquisition price for the Rollaston South project was 19.9% of the issued capital of Yari. That provides us with a current market capital of AUD 7.2 million, with AUD 1.7 million in cash as per our last quarterly report at the end of March.
Our issued capital is 602 million shares, which includes the 47.2 million deferred shares, which will be issued post-shareholder approval at the upcoming general meeting on the 15th of July. In addition to the 19.9% shareholding that the vendors acquired in Yari, there is a milestone payment of 86 million performance rights, and that milestone payment was a dual inferred coal resource of greater than 100 million tons. We did not think we would get there so fast, but two weeks later, we got to 151 million tons, which triggers that milestone payment. The enterprise value of Yari is currently AUD 5.5 million, with a valuation of AUD 0.036 per tonne of resource of coal estimate. Our major shareholder in Yari Minerals is the Copulos Group, with a current shareholding of 27.8%, along with the vendors of the project of 19.9% post-general meeting.
Talking about the coal qualities, here in this table, you see the resource estimate. The majority of the coal lies in exploration permit for coal 2327, and there you can see that the calorific values, which is the number second from the far right, are generally all plus 6,000 kcal/kg. The Newcastle coal specification is plus 6,000, so we meet that specification. The number that's important for semi-soft coking coal is the swell number on the far right. To get to a semi-soft coking coal, you need a swell number above 2.5, and with some washing, early test work completed and prior metallurgical samples has proved that can happen, but we do need to complete more test work to have the confidence to actually declare that in our resource.
Talking about the resource and the project here, we can see the outline of the current both mining leases and exploration permits for coal issued. The people around us who have mining leases are Meteor Downs and the Rollaston Glencore pit, and then exploration leases are Peabody and Vitronite Resources along with Tristar. These are the only granted mining and exploration permits for coal. Currently, the Queensland government no longer issues any further exploration permits for coal unless they're tendered out to the market. What's there is there, and what may come up will be a competitive process to compete with the bigger majors to win any new exploration permits for coal. We are very strategically based in a high-quality coal body with very high large resources and limited opportunities to be granted new exploration permits for coal. The high-quality infrastructure.
This slide here shows us a picture of the Meteor Downs rail loading loop. You can see there they have a stockpile, loading facilities, weighbridge, and you can see where the rail loop turns, there is the actual state highway running right along there, which runs straight to the Rollaston South Coal Project. The infrastructure is top class, right location, and efficiently placed as possible. The Yari team is headed up by our Non-Executive Chairman, Eduardo. Eduardo is an engineer who's worked predominantly in the oil and gas and, more importantly, also the coal seam gas sector in Queensland. He brings exceptional expertise and knowledge when it relates to coal and coal seam gas, which is important in building our team going forward. My other fellow director is William Witham, who is a Non-Executive Director.
He's an accomplished geologist with over 30 years' experience and a broad range of experience across government, non-government, and financing projects into new exploration vehicles. Looking forward and what the pathway will be for the rest of this year for Yari Minerals, our vision that we set out a month ago when we acquired the Rollaston South Coal Project was to remodel the resource. We've completed that, and we've increased the resource 91%. Secondly, we're now in the process of starting to finalize our drilling program and go through and get the permitting granted to complete the drilling program by the end of this year. That program will target both an increase in resource category and resource overall, including test work for semi-soft coking coal.
Once that's then complete, we can then define the pathway for the application of a mining lease or mining development lease application, which we'll submit in 2026. Going through here is just the appendices, which is this presentation is now released onto the ASX. It has further details of the coal qualities, the transport infrastructure, and also our contact details here in the end. Now I will open up the floor to any questions, and I'll answer those.
Thanks, Anthony. I'll just reiterate to everyone there, if you've got any questions, please go ahead and type them into the chat now. Anthony, I did have a couple come through before the webinar, so I'll start with those and we'll see what happens online. Rollaston South appears to benefit from strong infrastructure access.
Can you provide more detail on available rail and port capacity, and how confident are you that the project will be able to secure allocation for coal exports through the Port of Gladstone?
Yeah, that's a very important question. Any bulk commodity project requires access to very efficient and low-cost infrastructure access. The Blackwater Rail system and the Port of Gladstone is an open access third-party rail system owned by Horizon and other third-party providers. There's a range of options to access that infrastructure there, and we're sort of initially starting discussions with some parties now. Also, once you have a mining lease and you know your mine plans, you can apply for capacity allocation with Horizon and the Port of Gladstone or access other people's allocated systems and do an infrastructure sharing deal there.
Hopefully over the course of the next six to 12 months, we'll have more news flow on that.
Great, thanks, Anthony. I've got another one here. With AUD 1.7 million cash reserves at the last update, can you speak to Yari's current funding position and how far that gets you?
Yeah, our current cash reserves will get us through this drilling program, and we're funded to complete that drilling program. That will lead to potentially a significant upgrade in both the coal resource and coal resource categorization and resource tonnage.
Great, thanks, Anthony. Another one that came through earlier, and I've got a few coming through live as well, so I'll get to those. Sure. Yari still holds several lithium projects. Can you clarify the current status of these assets?
Yeah, sure. Our strategy with the lithium assets is to maximize our shareholder value.
I think we all know we're in a bit of a lithium winter at the moment, so that market is a little bit depressed, but we'll seek to maximize shareholder value in the best way possible.
Beautiful, thanks, Anthony. I'll just go to a couple of the ones that have come through live. You might even want to flick back to one of the other slides for this first one, Anthony, but what are the companies that are neighboring Yari?
Yeah, sure. So, I'll flick back to the slide here. So, this one here, so the companies that are bordering Yari will obviously be Glencore, Meteor Downs, which both those two projects are operating, which Meteor Downs is a joint venture by Sumisho, which is a Japanese trading house, along with UMD Mining, which is a local arm of a Chinese mining entity which exports coal.
We also have Peabody, Vitronite, and Tristar. Vitronite is a privately owned group which started out in Queensland and is backed by Ryan Welcher, so very deep pockets there.
Great, thanks, Anthony. Another one here online. In the PREZO, the NAV was stated as AUD 0.0002 per tonne. What price is the peer company's value per tonne, if you can answer that?
Yeah, we have actually updated that NAV or that valuation per resource tonne because our market cap has increased. It is now AUD 3.6 per tonne. I think probably the best multiple to sort of consider on that is the Enshen coal mine was sold in 2023 to a South African coal mining group that has a resource of just under 1 billion tonnes, and that was sold for AUD 390 million. That is a resource multiple of AUD 0.40 per tonne, but their reserve was about 36 million tonnes.
That was sold for almost $10 or just over $10 per tonne of reserve.
Oh, very good. I think we've got one left here. What are the key outcomes you're targeting from your inaugural drilling campaign? Is the focus more on increasing the resource size, upgrading the joint categories, or confirming product specifications or off-take discussion for off-take discussion, sorry?
It's all of those above. The drilling program will be designed to firstly both increase the resource, increase the categorization through that drilling, will also take those samples and actually test them for semi-soft coking coal and coal qualities, and all of that combined will actually help us to define our strategy on our off-take and future development pathways. All three even go hand in hand.
Excellent. That wraps up today's webinar. We look forward to tracking progress as Yari advances drilling and development at Rollaston South.
If you have any follow-up questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch. Thanks again for joining us, and thank you, Anthony, for the update.
No worries, and thank you everyone who has joined this webinar.