Hello, welcome to Virtual Investor Conferences. On behalf of OTC Markets, we are very pleased you have joined us for our two-day Precious Metals and Critical Minerals Conference. The next presentation of the day is from Evolve Royalties. Please note you may submit questions for the presenter at any time. You can also view a company's availability for a one-on-one meeting by clicking Book a Meeting. At this point, I'm very pleased to welcome Joseph de la Plante, President and Chief Executive Officer of Evolve Royalties, which trades on the OTCQX Best Market under the symbol EVRYF, and on the CSE under the symbol EVR. Welcome back, Joseph.
Thanks very much, Greg. Thanks for having me again. Very happy to be going through the Evolve Royalties story with this audience here. Evolve is a copper-focused royalty company. Our story, it differentiates itself a little bit from the other presenters today in the sense that we don't own any mines directly. We are owners of royalties on a number of different mines across the planet, are able to run a very lean company by essentially receiving future production from a number of mines directly into our portfolio. The royalty model is one that's very commonplace in the mining sector. The way it works, essentially, we invest capital into operations that have different needs for capital, whether it's for exploration, development, or for construction, in exchange for a future percentage of the revenues of the mine. It's a passive interest.
We own these royalties with no further implication from our team into the operations and no further investment from our team into the operations. What it allows us to do is build a diversified portfolio of holdings that give our investors exposure to the underlying commodities of these operations, but with a reduced level of risk because we have exposure to the top line of the mines. When there's fluctuations in the operating costs or if there's extra capital cost items that come about over the life of the mine, we don't have to participate in those costs. It's a wonderful way to play the commodity space. This business model has proven time and time again why it can deliver superior returns with lower risk compared to other more traditional ways to invest in the mining sector. Most importantly, we're a team that's done this before.
This is our third royalty company that we're building. In our past, we've built a company called Nomad Royalty, which was a precious metals royalty vehicle. Evolve, we're taking a different direction. We're focusing on base metals, in particular copper. We think it's a wonderful time to be looking at copper. Not only has copper underpinned really the significant traditional growth we've seen in our economies over the last 100 years, but now we're seeing many new very significant drivers for copper in the next 10, 20 years. We want to position our investors to benefit from the growth and the price that we see coming for copper, driven by that demand. Ultimately, this is a very simple story. We're a small team running what's a growing portfolio with these commodities that eventually are going to deliver superior returns over the many next decades.
As I mentioned, our team, we've done this before. In a lot of ways, Evolve is a playbook that we know extremely well, and we're replicating our past success with Nomad Royalty. For those of you who are not familiar with Nomad, it's a company we listed in 2020 and took essentially from a standstill in 2020 until ultimately we were acquired in August of 2022 by Sandstorm Gold. A very short-lived experience, but during which we created a lot of value for our shareholders, taking what were originally a small portfolio of precious metals royalties and growing it into a full-fledged royalty platform in just over two years. Everything we're doing now has been informed by that experience.
Really what it boils down to for royalty companies is there's a few specific things we need to put together, to be able to have success in a platform like this. The main thing is to focus on cash flowing assets. When we have that, we're able to find many ways to raise more financing to deploy into new investment opportunities. We're fortunate in Evolve today, and I'll go through the portfolio in a few slides, but we think we have all the ingredients for success already in the platform today. All of the heavy lifting to get the company up and running, get it ready to a point to further invest, all that's behind us. Now our team is just focused on going out and getting the new drivers for growth and new investments that we can bring into our portfolio.
Generally speaking, when we think about our strategy, we're going to be focused mostly on copper. Why? Because I think there's a resounding consensus around the forecast for copper, whether it's what we think are going to be the demand drivers going forward, but also we all know there's a lack of new copper development assets coming online over the next 10 years to meet that demand. What that means is there's going to be a huge push to find and develop new copper mines to put them into production. What we see coming is a new emerging set of opportunities that are going to come to market, require capital for exploration, development, construction, and we are positioning our platform to be the go-to source of capital for those projects. We have one investment in the portfolio today on a mine called McIlvenna Bay.
This was a very unique company that came to market a few years ago and developed and now has built Canada's newest copper mine, which has just started production. When we look towards the future, we see more and more of these types of companies that could possibly emerge and develop new, smaller copper mines, that we think will be the perfect candidates for our type of financing. Outside of copper, we are looking at other commodities. We have a tin investment in the portfolio. We have a lithium royalty in the portfolio. We're looking more opportunistically at other commodities outside of base metals generally, but making sure that the overall mix is always weighted to copper. When we look at the portfolio today, we're fortunate to have a very high concentration of assets in the Americas, in particular in Canada.
Going forward, we are looking to invest globally generally, sticking to lower-risk jurisdictions or jurisdictions that have proven to be established mining jurisdictions. To achieve a level of diversification here, we do have to keep an open mind from a geographical point of view in terms of where we want to deploy capital. What we're always looking to do is partner with great operators that can help manage the risk, not just from an operational standpoint, but from a jurisdictional standpoint, to make sure that every investment that we have, we're reducing the risk, in particular, reducing any kind of geopolitical risk. We have a good amount of royalties in the portfolio today. There's five royalties in the portfolio that make up the bulk of our value as we see it. As I mentioned earlier in the presentation, our team, we're really focused on building cash flow.
What that means is when we deploy into new opportunities, we're looking to either acquire royalties that are already in production, or we're helping to finance operations that have a very defined timeline to get into production. In our experience in the mining sector in general, that's the best way to reduce risk as a whole, is to invest in opportunities that are more mature, and have that defined timeline to production. For a company of our size, I think we're very fortunate to have a really high-quality portfolio already as a starting point. With three royalties on good Canadian copper mines, being Highland Valley Copper, which is Teck's mine in British Columbia. It's been producing for many, many decades. We have a royalty on parts of the Copper Mountain Mine, which is a mine owned by Hudbay in British Columbia and Canada also.
Now, we acquired late last year a new royalty on McIlvenna Bay, which is Canada's newest copper mine, now owned by Eldorado Gold. Outside of these copper royalties, we also have a royalty on the Uis Tin Mine. This is a mine in Namibia, that's recently been built and hit steady state, a long mine life ahead. In terms of the medium-term in our pipeline, we have a royalty on a fully permitted lithium brine in Salta in Argentina. These assets really form the base of our company. I think more importantly, when you look at this slide, it tells the story of what Evolve is becoming, right? We started the year, this year, with one cash flowing asset. By the time we finish this year, we'll have three or four producing royalties in the portfolio. This is what really what we're trying to achieve.
We're trying to grow the portion of tangible value within our business. We do that by focusing on cash flowing royalties. Speaking of operators, really, this is one of the most important things in a royalty portfolio, is who are the companies operating these mines? The bigger the company, the deeper the pockets. What that means is those companies will then find ways to make their assets more valuable. They do that by exploring, they do that by expanding. All of those things are happening within our portfolio. We have great Tier 1 operators between Teck, Hudbay, Eldorado, and even some of the more emerging producers in our portfolio. All of the operators of our mines are actively investing in the operations, making the mines and the properties more valuable, and therefore making our royalties more valuable.
This is the way that value gets created within our portfolio, that organic growth. It happens when the operators invest, and increase the mine life or invest in an expansion. To illustrate that point, the main royalty in our portfolio is a royalty on Highland Valley Copper. It's a mine that's been producing since the 1960s. It's owned by Teck Resources, located in BC. A wonderful jurisdiction, T ier 1 operator, Tier 1 mine, in my opinion. To give you an example of value that's created on the royalty front. This mine was nearing the end of its mine life, projected at 2028. They've recently now sanctioned construction of the mine life extension program, which is going to take the mine from 2028 until 2046. Beyond that, there's a significant amount of resources still in the resource inventory after that.
In our opinion, a mine that could go well beyond even the extended mine life. This is a very mature operation, we've been very fortunate to have this as the cornerstone royalty in our portfolio. It's a really high-quality asset. It's going to give us stable cash flow over the next many, many years. HVC is forecasted to produce between 150,000 and 135,000 tons of copper this year, and expected to grow over the coming years. We are well-positioned here. These are the types of royalties that are quiet contributors in the portfolio. Again, for a company like Evolve, to have a royalty like this, it's a really great starting point for our company. Moving on to McIlvenna Bay. This is a mine that's now owned by Eldorado. We acquired this royalty late last year.
The mine has been in construction for the past couple of years. They've recently announced that they produced first concentrate, we're finally at the point where they're transitioning into production. Evolve owns a 75% royalty over the key parts of this property. We also own a suite of royalties on some of the very interesting regional targets around this property. This is a really wonderful situation for us, where we have tangible value coming from the immediate cash flow that we see happening at the mine. The company is also now drilling out a new zone called Tesla. We expect a new resource on Tesla later this year. This new zone will most likely significantly increase the resource base at the mine. It's great for our royalty from the point of view that there's more ore than what we previously knew when we made this investment.
Also, that is very likely to drive expansions at the operation, which is something that Eldorado has now communicated to the market they're studying as well. We have this initial cash flow that's coming in the near term. We have the potential for resource growth. We have potential for expansions. Importantly, our royalty covers a number of really interesting regional targets, where the company's actively exploring, actively making new discoveries. We're really hitting all the different value buckets on this type of royalty. In my experience, what we know today, fast-forward three to five years, this will be a completely different operation, and likely a royalty that's much, much more valuable than it currently sits in our portfolio. Great timing, I think, for us to get involved here.
Once again, for a company to have a royalty on this type of operation, I think is a really unique thing. Moving on to our tin royalty on the Uis mine in Namibia. We acquired this royalty in February of this year. Uis is a mine that was previously producing. It's been recently brought back into production by a company called Andrada Mining. They've invested to build an operation that's currently producing about 1,000 tons of contained tin per year. This is a very unique property. They currently have an inventory of just under 120,000 tons of contained tin. At the current production rate, we see a mine life that goes well beyond 40, 50 years. Beyond that, the company's also drilling, expanding the resource base. We think there's exciting developments to happen later this year on the resource inventory on this property.
This is a really great type of deposit to have a royalty on because the mine life will go for a very long time. At the current rate of production, we expect, at current tin prices, to receive about CAD 4 million from this royalty alone on an annual basis. We're positioned here to realize value over a very long period of time. Now, just to comment on tin. Tin is a very unique commodity, fits really well with copper in a portfolio. Tin, the primary uses are for soldering in electric circuits. Many applications, obviously, in power electronics and solar technologies. It's a small market, but one where there are really big demand drivers that are acting in a market where a lot of the tin supply comes from countries where there's been a lot of disruption.
We, as well as many others, believe that the tin price will see sustained growth over the next many years. There aren't many ways to get exposure to tin in your portfolio. This is a very clean way that we now have been able to provide our investors for that exposure. Once again, I think it fits really well with the demand drivers of copper. If you believe in copper, it means you're connecting things that need tin. Moving on to Copper Mountain. This is a royalty. It's a 5% NSR on the North Pit area of the Copper Mountain Mine. When we acquired this royalty from Sandstorm in 2024, as part of that transaction, there was a CAD 10 million carve-out on the royalty, meaning that we start to get paid after Sandstorm receives the first CAD 10 million from the royalty.
The royalty has been paying about CAD 1 million a quarter over that period of time. We see our first payment come in to Evolve likely in Q4 or Q1 of next year. We've been patiently waiting for that moment to come, but it is upon us. The royalty doesn't cover the entire mine life. There's obviously a smaller inventory on this part of the royalty round than is contained in the entire resource base. Because it's a 5% NSR, the payments are substantial when they are paid out. We see a mine life between three and five years on our royalty ground on this royalty. Of course, that excludes any further resource growth here.
We know there's lots of optimism around this deposit and this project within Hudbay, and we're obviously following developments there, and expect possibly further news on developments of the mine plan, developments of the resource base over the coming months. Finally, moving on to our lithium royalty in Argentina. This is a 2% NSR on a salar called Salar de Diablillos. Salta is a very developed mining region where there's lots of very significant lithium operations operating there currently. This project is fully permitted. They're looking to build ultimately a 30,000 ton per annum lithium carbonate operation. They are currently preparing for construction on a phase I, which would produce 10,000 tons per annum to begin with.
Just to give you a sense of scale of things, at 30,000 tons per annum at the current lithium price, the royalty would pay to us somewhere between $12 million-$15 million per year. It's a very significant potential here. Naturally, we're very excited and waiting for the moment where the operator announces the formal construction of the mine. We see lots of positive things indicating that that moment is coming. The company has applied for the RIGI framework in Argentina, which would allow them to make the investments required for the construction. I think an important thing with this one is to understand that we are not necessarily going out and looking to invest significant amounts of capital in lithium. Lithium is a smaller part of our portfolio.
To give you an idea, this royalty we acquired for CAD 5 million a couple of years ago, CAD 5 million Canadian, so about $3.5 million. The returns on this one largely outweigh the risk that we took to bring it into the portfolio. These are the types of situations that we like. Lithium is a volatile commodity that is likely to see some volatility over the next 10 years. When you have this type of cost base into an investment, I think you're sheltered on a lot of that volatility, and we're just looking forward to the moment where we can receive some of this cash flow into our portfolio. We recently visited a site a few months ago. Very impressive site with most of the equipment that's required for phase 1 already sitting there ready for the company to hit the switch. Lots of positives here.
Again, we are waiting for that moment where they start construction. Conscious of time, we'll move on to perhaps some of the more Evolve-related slides of the presentation. We've been able to put together a catalyst-rich portfolio. Obviously, we have cash flow coming in currently from two royalties. By the time 2026 ends, we should have our first checks from McIlvenna Bay, possibly from Copper Mountain as well. Those will be significant milestones for us, going from two to four royalty payments. There's obviously a number of catalysts in the portfolio that I mentioned during the presentation. New resource base at McIlvenna Bay, commencement of construction at Sal de los Angeles. All these things leading to further catalysts in the portfolio over the next many years.
Once again, I've said it a number of times in the presentation, we really feel like we have a strong, high-quality portfolio, and it sets an excellent base for our team to now add the other layer of growth in a royalty business, which is acquisitions. On that front, we've recently announced a new partnership with Bank of Montreal, which has now provided us with a revolving credit facility. It's at CAD 50 million, expandable to CAD 75 million. This is really a tool that we're going to use to go out and find new royalties, find new growth to bring into the portfolio. One of the things that royalty companies can offer their investors is not just organic growth that's fully paid for in the portfolio, but also we can deploy capital accretively into new opportunities.
It's one of the main ways that we offer returns to our shareholders. With a facility like this one, we're really well-positioned to do that. As a provider of capital into the mining space, having access to a facility like this one puts us in a great seat to sit across from operators that have all kinds of capital needs and guarantee them that if we can strike a deal, we have the capital available to fund those transactions. It's a significant step, I'd say, in the evolution of our business and our platform, and I think it puts us in a really great position from this point on to go out and deliver transformative accretive transactions into the portfolio. From a capital structure point of view, a very simple cap structure, just about 51 million shares outstanding.
We're free cash flow positive, our cash balance is growing. Obviously, we've made a few investments over the past few months. When we look forward, we see our cash balance growing nicely. Currently sitting about $105 million - $150 million market cap, depending on the day in USD. Very clean cap structure, no debt on the balance sheet as of yet. We have access to a CAD 75 million credit facility to fund new acquisitions.
I think most importantly from a shareholder point of view, one of the things we've really focused on to this point has been to build a register of high-quality institutions that are fully aligned and understand the vision and strategy of Evolve and are actively backing us and in discussion with us on what comes next, what are the other opportunities that they could possibly help fund and to help grow the scale of the platform that we've created. It's a unique thing, I think, for a company of our size. We have about 40% of our register, with institutions. Orion Resource Partners, one of the largest private equity funds in the mining space, owns about 8% of the company, 8.5%, with management owning about 14%. It's a great shareholder makeup. We've been deliberately building this, making sure that we have the right mix of investors.
I think this is a really great asset for us to allow us to continue to grow the business. I've talked a little bit about our team, but maybe just a quick word. All three of us have been working together in our past life at Nomad and even beyond. It's a very lean team. We can run a fairly large portfolio, but ensure to keep the G&A low. It's the reason why we have such a lean team. We want to make sure that whatever cash flow's coming in is either going out to new investments or is going onto the balance sheet. It's a big focus of ours. We are deliberately making sure that our G&A is well below the peers. We expect it to stay that way as we grow the platform.
Between the three of us, we have the ability to structure and finance transactions, the ability to do diligence, resource estimates internally, and also all of the financial expertise to put together the platform with everything required to run a public company. I'd say the perfect setup and we don't expect to grow the team much beyond this as we go forward. I think the last point here is just on a valuation standpoint. We listed in December of 2025. Our company has traded at a modest discount to the rest of the peer set. As we expand the scale, expand the brand behind Evolve, and show the types of transactions we can deliver into the portfolio, we certainly believe that this valuation gap can close, and we have the quality to justify a premium multiple within this peer set.
Just on that basis, I think it makes becoming a shareholder very interesting. As I mentioned, we're all big shareholders of the platform and believe strongly that the share price will eventually reflect the value in the portfolio. Most importantly, the value that we can deliver over the coming years as we deliver new accretive transactions, and that's really where the royalty model shines. It's not just what's in the portfolio today, it's what can we deliver over the next few years, being in the market, actively looking for new opportunities. On that note, we'll bring the formal presentation to a close. Evolve is a very simple story. We're applying an existing business model that's well-proven, but into a new commodity set. There are no sizable copper royalty companies out there.
We want to be the first to grow something that's very unique in the marketplace, and we think that we have everything that we need to make that happen. On that note, we'll end the formal part of the presentation. I see lots of really interesting questions coming in. I will be making myself available for one-on-one meetings and certainly answering questions as a follow-up. Please send in anything to the OTC team, and we'll make sure to get back to everyone. On that note, thanks very much for listening in, and have a great day.