Let's go. Warwick Smith, CEO of American Pacific here with Joness Lang, President of American Pacific. Kristina Pillon is also watching from the side here, who runs our Investor Relations as well. I appreciate everybody coming. Big day for the company. As you have likely seen this morning, American Pacific has regained 100% interest in the Palmer Project. I should say gained, as we didn't regain it. We're gaining 100% interest in the Palmer Project and $10 million. The. Here we are. I'll be making some forward-looking statements, so I'll just put that on there. So the transaction goes as follows. We previously owned 29% of the Palmer Project, along with having around $2.5 million in cash. This morning, we regained 100% control of Palmer, which combined is a 14 million ton VMS. Please have a look at the disclosures on our website and a breakdown of the resource.
We also received $10 million , so roughly CAD 14 million, from Dowa. And in return, Dowa receives an option on 50% of the zinc concentrate when the project goes into production in the future. So as of today, we have 100% control of Palmer, and we have roughly just over CAD 16 million in cash.
So.
To touch on the - sorry, go ahead.
Yeah, quickly on the background of this, JV. So American Pacific acquired its interest in the Palmer Project by way of acquisition of Constantine Metal Resources. That was essentially two years ago to date. Again, maybe I'll start by saying I'd like to thank Dowa for being an excellent partner through the last two years. They've spent over $100 million in exploration and development work since 2013. And if you look at this transaction based on the acquisition we made back in 2022, that was roughly CAD 19 million in stock. Through the course of the two years, we received over CAD 3 million for operating the project. And today's announcement with $10 million, another CAD 14 million or so, essentially brings us whole on the initial investment now with 100% control of the project. What led to this deal today really was differing corporate priorities and objectives.
Dowa's incentive and objective here has always been the zinc concentrate making its way to Japan. One of the reasons we got involved in the project was our view on the exploration upside. We saw tremendous opportunity for this to grow. A reminder that only four of the known VMS showings, more than 16 of them at the project, are currently in the resource estimate. Next slide.
Yeah. Also worth mentioning, if I can just chime in a couple of comments on Palmer. Today, it's got a 14 million ton resource at plus 9% zinc equivalent, plus 4% copper equivalent. Every geologist who looked at this that we spoke to said, "We think this has got that 50 million ton potential. It's got the opportunity to be big. That's always what really excited us about this project." Dowa looked at it and said, "Hey, it's 14 million tons of good grade. Let's get it in production because we want that zinc concentrate." That's what Joness just kind of alluded to, is there was this little bit of a divergence between the two companies.
Now, when we look at this, and we look at either future partners or future people who'd be interested in this project, I think a lot of us see it that way, where this can be this juggernaut VMS project as it goes forward. As a reminder, recent drill results, recent drill highlights up at Palmer, 43.8 meters at 8.2% copper equivalent, 37 meters at 8.4% copper equivalent. So it certainly can carry some pretty tremendous grades as it goes forward.
That might be one last thing to touch on there too. I think this project has started to shift from being zinc-forward to certainly seeing some very high-grade copper zones, which is less of a fit in terms of the overall objectives of the project on the Dowa side. Going forward, this consolidates the ownership, 100% control, allows for that renewed focus on testing that significant exploration upside and mineral resource expansion. One of the key catalysts upcoming will be an updated mineral resource estimate. This is overdue. The last one was pre-COVID. We've had some significant results, which we just touched on in the last couple of years. Those will be incorporated. Also, the spot prices used in that last estimate, we're talking $2.80 per pound copper, $1,300 gold, $16 silver, and $1.20 zinc.
Consolidated ownership, as work alluded to as well, this enhances the potential for us to look at subsequent transactions versus what can be a more complicated JV structure to bring in another bigger party down the line. And should note, this transaction is expected to close in the coming weeks and certainly in Q4 2025.
Comment here is that with $16 million in cash as of this morning, our market cap is half in cash. I want to put up this slide because I think it does a good job of showing where the value in American Pacific is today. American Pacific is trading at an 85% discount to the average EV per pound valuation for its peers, and that's just based off of Palmer. That's not giving any exploration upside or any substance to Madison, which is an asset that we're really excited to be drilling upcoming here in January, and that's based on a $0.21 share price, which is roughly where it is right now, and you can look at all the peers on the screen there and see how it rates.
So we still feel there's an awful lot of room here to create value with American Pacific, not just with Madison, but with Palmer as well. So in closing, American Pacific has $16 million in cash. We own 100% of the Madison project and 100% of Palmer. Strong portfolio of gold, silver assets in the Western U.S. So the question's now going to be, what's next? We view Palmer as a standalone project. We think we'll look to transact there, and that would be a significant win for American Pacific again. With Madison, we're going to be out drilling in January of this year. We've got a three-phase program. We've done one phase of drilling. We're going to do Phase II-A, II-B, and III, which look to drive us towards a resource at Madison within the next 18 months. I will be completely honest.
That was the game plan before today when we had about $2.5 million in cash. With $16 million in cash and an upcoming board meeting, we may look to increase things there and move that a little more quickly. But we will be aggressively going after Madison. We're also going to look at the rest of the portfolio. We've got a bunch of great assets in here that we really like, but we're not necessarily getting value for. So we may either A, spin those assets out, or B, look to transact on those as well. This is going to be a very heavy news period from here into Q1, Q2 of 2025. So certainly very excited about that. This is a big day for American Pacific. Getting $16 million in cash in a tough market is a really strong place to be.
Having full control of Palmer, having full control of Madison is an incredibly strong place to be and gives us optionality as to how we move those assets forward today. I'm going to remind you that this time last year, January 1st of last year, we had $2.8 million in cash, 30% of Madison and 30% of Palmer. Today, we've got $16 million in cash, 100% of Palmer, and 100% of Madison. We're continuing to look to make deals to move this company forward aggressively. I appreciate everybody's time today. Happy to answer any questions. Kristina, if we can hold those up to take a look at questions, that would be great.
Maybe before we jump into any of the questions, we'll just comment that we do plan to have an upcoming call with Peter, our head of exploration up in Alaska, at some point. Once we've got the transaction closed, moving towards our resource update, we will lay out more of our plans for 2025 at that later date.
One of the first questions I see is, any specifics on Gooseberry? Yeah. I think this falls into that. We love that asset. It's just trying to find value for that asset. And now with cash, do you look at it and say, "Is this something that we should drill, or is this something we should bring in a partnership on?" Kind of lean towards the latter at this point. I think there's quite a few groups that have shown interest. I know there's quite a few groups that have shown interest in Gooseberry, Tuscarora, etc. And I think those are things that we're going to kind of lean into now to see if we can find a way to look to spin those out and create excitement with them.
Next question is about which assets looking to spin off. Again, there's a handful of projects in Nevada, Western U.S. that are gold, silver that would make sense within its own vehicle. Earlier stage in that there's drilling, no resource, but past production, high grades, certainly assets that would justify standing alone as a group and new company. That would include Tuscarora, Gooseberry, Ziggurat would be the three key ones that come to mind.
I'll take this one on the option to Dowa. So is the option to Dowa only for zinc, or does it include copper and other metals? No, it is just the zinc. It is 50% of the zinc con. The copper, the silver, the gold, the barite, those all stay. It's just for the zinc. Joness, maybe you want to comment further on that as to how that works.
Yeah, it's an option agreement for 50% to be negotiated in good faith based on standard benchmark terms at that time, about a year ahead of any commercial production.
One of the questions we've had is, how does a Trump presidency change the view on Alaska? I mean, I think if you look at companies like Trilogy, we've used that example a couple of times. They've got a great asset up in Alaska. I think part of the concern there always was they needed to build a road through to Ambler, which has always been a bit of a contentious issue. You see Trump coming as president, the next day their stock price doubles. It's gone up further since then. So I think it's a $280 million market cap now. PEA stage asset with a great resource up there. Really, the feeling is with a Republican president, a Republican House and a Republican Senate, that getting a permitting done is going to be a lot easier than it has been previously.
So I think that's part of the feeling for us too, is that driving this asset becomes a little bit easier under a Republican team up there. I think that's probably good for about now. One of the last slides we threw up there was our contact details. So certainly myself, Joness, and of course, Kristina are happy to take questions and happy to answer any of the questions or comments that you guys have. Great day for American Pacific, cashed up for the foreseeable future, 100% control of Madison and 100% control of Palmer, and a significant pipeline of news with significant drilling coming up as well. So I thank you all and look forward to more questions as we go forward.