Good day, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Gold Fields and Osisko Mining joint venture to develop the Windfall Project. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode, and a brief question and answer session will follow the presentation. If you should require any assistance during the conference, please press star and then zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to introduce your host, Martin Preece. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Chris. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning to those on the other side of the world. Welcome to this call. I think a special welcome to John and his team from Osisko who are joining us from Toronto. In terms of our, the rationale for the call today is just to update you all on the recently announced partnership we are going into with Osisko Mining related to the Windfall project in Quebec, Canada. I'm gonna finish off these introductory remarks and ask John if he's got any further remarks to add. Then I will go through some of the basics around the deal. Then John is gonna take us through the project itself. At the end, we will take some questions.
The presentation is loaded on our website, for those of you who'd like to watch it. John, if I could, maybe hand over to you, I'm sure you have some introductory remarks.
Yes. Thank you, Martin, and welcome everybody to today's call. I'll keep my points brief. We're very excited, very happy to make today's announcement with Gold Fields. Windfall is an absolute world-class deposit. You know, we've worked on this one for about 7.5 years with some very stunning results in terms of the drilling, the grade, the scale of this deposit. It's an exciting deposit. It is an exciting day for us. Really, this kicks off the first day of marching towards mining, which we expect in about 2.5-three years' time from now.
Martin will walk you through the deal and I will try and give you that same sense of excitement that we feel jointly both as Osisko and Gold Fields for how we see this deposit developing in the future. Back over to you, Martin.
Thanks, John. As John said, a very exciting day for all of us. We're pleased to be partnering with Osisko. They've put a lot of effort over many years into this. Our teams have been working on this jointly for the past year and a little bit. I think what really excites us is working with Osisko. They're an experienced partner with vast experience in that jurisdiction. It's a world-class asset with all-in sustaining costs of just below $800 an ounce. We've got a 10-year reserve life on the project. I think really importantly for us is the upside we see, the analog with our operations in Australia, where we see significant expansion and exploration potential.
John and his team, you know, have got a really strong ESG track record, which dovetails with what we're doing, the power line that they're doing with local communities, and completely renewable power to come to the site. We're gonna share in the project development exploration, each contributing skills to create a unique partnership. We're really excited about going into a really strong jurisdiction with a great track record with Osisko, with exploration, permitting, construction, and operating in Quebec. We know it's a tough environment. I think the really important thing around the upside is the 50/50 joint venture over the Windfall project, but importantly, the Urban Barry and Quévillon camps.
That's over 2,400 sq km of land package, which we believe has got significant upside potential. In terms of the acquisition cost, we're gonna be buying in at CAD 600 million, paid in two tranches, one tranche today, and the second tranche once permitting comes through. We've also committed to CAD 75 million for the exploration spend to unlock that long-term upside potential. In terms of funding, we're gonna fund this through cash reserves and debt facilities and we in no way see this affecting the payment of dividends and remain committed to paying 30%-45% of our normalized earnings as we had announced during the call last year.
Growing the quality and value of our portfolio and strengthening our pipeline, this is really important for us, an asset coming in at under $800 all-in sustaining cost, with a nice long life. I've touched on the ESG. In terms of the commercial terms and operating structure, it's an immediate formation of the 50/50 partnership, which will be jointly run by both parties in equal representation at both board and committee level. The partnership covers the feasibility stage Windfall project, as well as the highly prospective Urban Barry and Quévillon camps. In terms of the consideration which I've touched on, basically the two tranches of $300 million, the first of which is transferring through today, which is approximately $220 million U.S. dollars.
In terms of development, it would be a 50/50 share in the interim programs and the construction cost going forward, which is CAD 1.1 billion on a 100% basis. As I've touched on the exploration part, we will for the first seven years fund an amount of CAD 75 million to drive the exploration. I think the headline for us is that this is a measured entry into Tier One jurisdiction on an exceptional asset, which John referenced in his introduction and something that we're really excited about. I think just touching very briefly on our strategy, this transaction supports both pillar three and pillar two around growing the value and quality of our portfolio of assets and then building on our leading commitment to ESG.
Fully aligned to our strategy and where we're going as a business. I think just in summary, I think in terms of our strategic criteria for improving the value and quality of our portfolio, I think asset quality, the first one at $800, all in sustaining costs and below, life of mine of 10 years just on reserves, not including resources. We've got asset quality, we've got jurisdictional quality, being in Quebec and Canada, the strengthening the pipeline, as we've touched on the exploration assets and growth potential, at scale, long life, and the project is at pre-construction stage already. Osisko has invested a lot of money in getting the site to where it is. We touched lastly on the ESG practices.
Osisko is ranked very highly. The MSCI rating was a in 2021. For us, it's an accretive incremental portfolio improvement that follows the same principles as the AngloGold Ashanti JV in Ghana that we announced some weeks ago. John, if I could maybe hand over to you to talk more competently about the project.
Thank you, Martin. As I mentioned, Windfall is truly an exceptional deposit. As it stands right now with our 7.4 million ounce total all combined resource, it is the largest high grade underground deposit ever found in Quebec in the last 100 years of exploration. It's located in a similar Archean greenstone belt to the well-known or at least better known Val-d'Or camps and Timmins camps, both of which have produced over 100 million ounces in the last 100 years. There's really no difference between the potential for the Windfall belt. It's just been less explored, literally a fraction of the exploration over the last 100 years of those other belts.
On slide seven, you can see on the top left corner, there's a comparison of Windfall to other Canadian gold discoveries. It ranks within the top 10% of Superior Province discoveries that were over five million ounces. It's already a highly ranked deposit as it stands. We expect it will grow over time and continue to move to the top of that list. Where we stand today, if we were in production at the current reserve grade that we used in the feasibility of 11.4 grams per tonne, it would be in the top 10 high grade producers globally. We have good reason to believe that head grade as we go into mining may increase and it may increase substantially.
You know, that'll be the big question as we get into the first sort of 12, 18 months of mining. We've afforded a very strict triple capping on this deposit because of the preponderance of coarse gold. We've taken pre-bulk samples to date of about 15,000 tonnes total, and we covered 15,000 ounces of gold. We've had recoveries and positive reconciliation of between plus 26% up to plus 89%. It is an exceptional deposit as it stands capped. We fully expect to commence at what we stated in our feasibility of 306,000 plus or minus ounces per year. We have good reason to believe that once we get mining, we may actually see additional grade come in.
Just as a note, every 1 gram of additional grade that we do capture, and we have been capping out about 25% of the gold metal from our resource, every additional 1 gram per tonne grade that we capture would add about another 35,000 ounces per year. You know, there's good reason to believe that as we move forward with additional work on deposit, we see this thing sort of creep up and surpass things like 400,000 ounces a year plus. Where this deposit sits, compared to other very well-known Canadian gold camps and gold mines like Red Lake, Macassa, LaRonde, we've drilled the deposit over the past seven years with nearly two million meters of drilling. It is very well drilled.
Some of you on the call may not be familiar or as familiar with Osisko Mining, but our group, Bob Wares, Sean Roosen, and myself started Osisko back in 2003. In the, in the space of six years and a month, we defined the Canadian Malartic deposit, Canada's current largest single gold producer, about 700,000 ounces a year, put that into production. Very big mine. You know, this is a little different in terms of it's a high grade mine. Where Windfall sits right now with the two million meters of drilling, we have it defined from surface down to 1,200 meters. We've done extensive drilling on the deposit, with some deeper holes as well.
Below that, we have good reason to believe we can double that resource as we go forward. We literally had to pick a place to stop. The target over the last two, three years was to come up with something just over four million ounces, so that by the time we added mine dilution, we were starting with a three million ounce reserve that we could then project a 10-year mine life on. But the deposit certainly doesn't stop at 1,500 meters. We drilled the deepest hole in Canada. It was about 3.4 kilometers long. We want to take a look at the roots of the system, and we have economic intercepts as deep as 2.8 kilometers vertical.
There's a lot of room for this deposit to grow. We could probably spend the next, you know, 5+ years just expanding the deposit internally, even above that, to that 1,200 meter level. Certainly as we go down plunge, we are seeing, higher grades and wider widths of this deposit. It, it is, you know, very truly, a very exceptional deposit, and I think it stands alone in this class globally today as, one of the very highest grade near-term development assets. On the next slide, on slide eight, the feasibility highlights, again, we chose a 10-year life of mine based on that, 12.1 million ounce, reserve that we diluted down to 3.2 million.
We didn't include 3.5 million of the other ounces. They're still there. Our conversion success has been well over 90% in terms of bringing those ounces from inferred into measured and indicated. There's at least another half the deposit in our minds as we go down plunge and laterally to add on as we move forward with the mining. We're looking at first production in 2025. Permitting has commenced in March. It's typically about an 18-month-plus process. We have some hopes that it might be shorter, once we come out of permitting, we're looking at a few months to get the actual construction release from Quebec Government, then about a 12-month construction cycle.
That would put us into late 2024, early 2025, if everything works perfectly, which we all know happens every single time in the business, with exceptions. The feasibility was predicting 306,000 ounces per year, based on the diluted grade of 8.1 from that initial 11.4 gram per ton grade in the reserve. We added some inferred material in there that we are, we're obliged to mine through. That's part of the development ore. We counted it at zero. We know it's not zero. It's actually at about the same resource reserve grade. It's subject to more drilling before we can add it into the M&I categories.
If we were to include that as drilled out material, we're probably looking at something more like 326,000 ounces per year on that basis. This is before we start thinking about adding additional grams that we may see coming to the mine as we move forward. Construction costs in the feasibility were estimated at CAD 789 million. We are seeing some cost reduction, have seen some cost reduction in the past three to four months as we move to detailed engineering. We're currently about 30%-40% through the detailed engineering. We're looking more like CAD 720 million as CapEx costs. That includes about CAD 50 million The AISC at $758 per ounce is certainly a very good AISC. Again, adding those other ounces that we excluded and counted to zero, we expect that number to come down. Certainly, if we see additional grade, we're getting them for free and just dividing by a bigger number. We should see the AISC, if we are correct about that additional grade coming in, drop below 700. We, as Martin mentioned, we are in partnership with the First Nations in a very big way. Cree Development Corporation , is currently building a hydro line to site from their substation in their town. This is about an 85-kilometer-long hydro line.
They're currently about 20% complete. It's spring breakup up there right now, there's a couple of weeks when big trucks aren't allowed to move around. We are expecting that hydro line to be complete by the end of this year or early in 2024, all on schedule. The new mine will be creating over 1,000 direct and indirect jobs during construction, and about 670 direct jobs during the operations. We currently employ about 30% as First Nations employees from the region. Our workforce is very diverse.
We have a very good balance from the board of directors through management and through our technical and operations staff at site, of all genders, and certainly the a big First Nations component and many, many, if not most of the employees are Quebec-based. On to slide number 9, the ramp-up and expansion potential. This is my favorite slide, of all the slides that we typically put in our deck. When we started with Windfall back in 2015, it's a longer story, but I'll try and make shorter. But with the original Osisko Mining, which we were forced to sell back in 2014, Bob Wares developed a list of targets. This camp was on that list.
We drilled one target and then walked away because we didn't see the size potential there. Then we spent the next 10 years with Canadian Malartic, drilling it out, putting it into production, building it, building the team. We produced the first 1.2 million ounces of gold from that mine before we were forced to sell it in 2014 because of a hostile takeover attempt from Goldcorp. So we do have production experience in Quebec, basically all the way from concept to acquisition to drilling to construction to operations. Windfall will be no different.
It's one of the attractions, I think, of this partnership for Gold Fields is we have a fully functional fighting team, not only on the exploration and discovery front, but also in the development and operations side. In terms of the discovery potential, the members of our team have an exceptional record in Quebec. We've discovered the last three world-class deposits discovered in Quebec, and that is Canadian Malartic, Windfall and Éléonore, with members of our team over the past 17, 18 years. Hats off to members of the group. Back to the slides. You can see the on the left-hand side of the cross-section that shows the 1,000 meter level.
bit below that is from 1,200 meters to surface is where we have our entire resource, the 7.4 million ounces in all categories, that includes the 4.1 million ounce reserve that we used in the feasibility. You can see the deep hole in the middle, which we called Discovery 1. If this was a larger diagram, you would see it project down quite a lot, quite a lot deeper, but there's wide open potential to expand the deposit following these various down plunge. We know they're there. We didn't stop drilling because we didn't believe in the potential, it's just we had to physically stop at some point
Having the access underground, we've got approximately 12-15 km of underground ramp from surface down to 630 meters vertical right now, has allowed us to put in underground drilling stations and drill it even more efficiently. Our discovery cost at Windfall has been approximately $45 US per ounce, including all of that two million ounces of drilling. It's, you know, these are world leading costs of discovery. We expect that to continue for a long time at Windfall. It's a growing deposit. Again, honestly, my personal belief is that if we were to do nothing but drill for a while, this would easily go over 10, 15+ million ounces in time. It's not the immediate objective.
The immediate objective is to complete the work, permitting and build the mine and get into production. Certainly in terms of the overall exploration potential around Windfall and in the belt, we don't have to go far to find a lot of additional ounces by just looking where we are laterally within the deposit, staying above the 1,200 meter level. It's, it's as we desire, move down plunge and replace those reserves as you mine them. The next slide, with respect to our ESG credentials and back to our prior experience as an operator, I'll say that, you know, we produced the first 9.2 million ounces at Canadian Malartic. We were a mining company, just about 8 years ago.
Before they called it ESG, it was called sustainable development, before that it was having your social license, before that it was just plain good operating practices. We've always done this. We report to a standard of an operating mining company already, so it's a very good fit with Gold Fields in terms of how we treat our ESG responsibilities. We are genuinely sincere about it, this will be one of the newest and most ESG friendly and responsible mines to open in the country in the coming couple of years. We mentioned the power line, it's well in progress. This is the first time in Quebec that Hydro-Québec has not built a power line to a site.
This is truly a groundbreaking agreement that we have with the Cree First Nation of Eeyou Istchee and the new Cree Development Corporation to build this line. I truly believe that this is gonna become a model for other companies operating in places like Quebec and across Canada in dealing with First Nations to share the benefits of mining in northern areas. At that point, I believe I just wanna touch briefly on the regional exploration. Outside of Windfall, back to the 2 million ounce or 2 million meters of drilling that we've done in the last 7.5 years, almost all of that has been conducted within about a 5 sq km area. We have a property that is district scale. It's 2,400 sq km of coverage.
We control about 65% of the available geology. Early on, when we started back in 2015, we age-dated all of the intrusions in the belt related to gold mineralization. They're all 2.69-2.72 billion years old, spread across the belt, which told us that the Windfall deposit was not a singularity. You know, this was a true mineralizing event, very much identical to the Val-d'Or camp, or the Timmins camp, where again, they have over 100 million ounces of production over the last 100 years. We expect the same thing fully, through exploration, that we will find additional Windfalls and Windfall type deposits as we move forward, and get on the big regional exploration program that is part of today's announcement.
At just one last slide to zoom in around the deposit. Again, we don't have to go far from Windfall to have additional targets. We've had five or six surface showings and discoveries through minimal exploration drilling. The problem that we had over the last two to four years as we drilled out the deposit and put that two million meters in, is underground deposits are very different from open pit mines. You have to drill a long way through a sterile before you get your economic intercept that builds into your resource. So we had to heavily focus on drilling up the resources of the deposit. We had up to 35 drills, one of the largest drill programs that I've ever been associated with. We've calmed that down a lot.
We only have 15 rigs right now. We've got seven on surface right now doing regional exploration. We can occupy ourselves very handily, again, just doing near deposit exploration in some of the highest potential areas. We do have surface showings on the property 40-45 km to the east. We've been returning results of multiple ounces of surface that we're hoping to get to and start drilling soon. I think you can expect that there will be future discovery success on this property as we get more rigs out and start doing exploration property wide. At that point, I'm gonna hand you over to Chris, I think there's gonna be questions.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you do wish to ask a question, please press star one on your touchtone phone or on the keypad on your screen. You will hear a confirmation tone that you have joined the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please press star two to remove yourself from the list. Again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. Our first question is from Adrian Hammond of Standard Bank Group Securities. Please go ahead.
Good day, Martin and John, and thanks for the detailed presentation. I'd like to start with some questions, firstly for Martin, three for you. Firstly, could you just clarify who will be the operator of this new JV? Also, how do you see, typically, you know, JVs in the past haven't been too successful. We've seen this time and time again. How do you expect to manage that with a new partner? Secondly, you've also got another project coming online soon. You'll be managing two now. Just some color on how management will stretch themselves and how you stretched or tested the balance sheet for the funding of this project.
Thirdly, on the feasibility study, the numbers that you've given us here today, what are the dates of these numbers? Is there any sort of considerations for CapEx given the inflation environment we're in today? John did mention that the CapEx numbers could actually fall. I just wanna clarify that number from John. Is that number that you quoted for post-construction versus the total CapEx bill of $1.1 billion, including sustaining CapEx? I think that's it, John. Thanks.
Thanks, Adrian. I'll have a go, and then I'm sure John will add to it. Neither of us are going to be operator. It's a true 50/50 JV operated, and it's very similar mechanism to how Canadian Malartic was operated. We will each allocate 50% of the board members, and this will be run as a separate company, where we will have three people from each organization on the board. It will be, they will employ management, and the entity will be run separately. There will be three subcommittees underneath that will support the board and the management in the executing of the duties. I think, you're very right about JVs are always typical, but I think it's around having the right personalities, the right leadership.
We've run a very successful JV in Australia, where we are the operator. It's about mutual respect and about how do we look at the interests of all parties, not just one party. I'm very comfortable with the arrangement. I think John and his team have run this model before. They've run it very successfully, and we've got a great deal of comfort with the model. I think, Paul, do you wanna just touch on the funding piece here?
Yeah, Adrian, I think you need to bear in mind that Salares Norte comes online next year. We've guided circa 500,000 ounces, all-in cost of $650. You can imagine how much money Salares is gonna make. As we said, initiatives will be provided from debt facilities, but then the funding will come from basically operational cash flows going forward.
Thanks. That's clear.
John?
John, I had a question for him, but perhaps if I can just change that one. What I haven't seen yet today is how will Osisko fund their portion?
John, do you want to answer this?
Good question. Yeah. Certainly. Pro forma, this deal and fully diluted will be somewhere north of CAD 900 million of cash. We currently have CAD 200 million in our bank account, subsequent to the payments that 민스 worked through 2024. We have other instruments in the company and investments and things that take us well over CAD 900 million. You know, our half of the CapEx is fully funded, plus we have a very comfortable cushion.
Thanks.
I think you had a question as well about the partnership and the CapEx coming down. We do believe the CapEx will come down. you know, we... When we put out our feasibility, really it was peak inflation in terms of, you know, where numbers were going. But half of that was probably supply chain related in terms of where we were going to hold the things, and ships were stacking up in ports. We saw the same thing happen in 2009, post the financial crisis. We were building Canadian Malartic at the time, and tires that were $20,000 each were shooting up to $80,000-$90,000 per tire. but that pressure came off.
We don't expect it to go back down to pre-inflation levels, we do see some cost reductions, certainly just in the terms of pricing. We're also finding economies in terms of how we are designing the well. We do expect a significant reduction in terms of what their well CapEx will be from the stated number in our feasibility. The partnership question, you know, we've been doing project evaluation with Gold Fields for some time now. The teams get along extremely well. Gold Fields has a very highly skilled technical team, and we have a very highly skilled technical team.
You know, we've got great discoverers in our group and great engineers and a very young, very keen group of members of our staff who are very exceptional in what they do. They're cutting edge, and I think these two teams are gonna get together very well. There will be good efficiencies, but also some, you know, some very good trading of ideas that are gonna consist what is, I believe, already a spectacular deposit being even more spectacular than that.
That's clear.
The document was published in December last year, 28 of November last year.
Yeah. Thank you very much, guys. That's clear.
Thank you. The next question is from Josh Wolfson of RBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks very much. I guess a question first for Gold Fields. You know, could you comment on whether there is a standstill associated with this or any ROFRs for the 50% stake that's not owned? Then also, you know, why hasn't the company looked at acquiring the 100% stake or maybe that was not an option, you know, given the company's financial resources, and, I guess the appeal of the asset, you know, that would seem to be a reasonable conclusion as well?
Yeah, I can answer that one for you, Josh. We weren't looking to sell the deposit 100%. You know, we've very publicly been looking at joint venture partnerships for over a year now and, that's my simple answer to that one.
Okay. The standstill or ROFR associated with the other 50% then, are there any details that can be disclosed there?
I think we have got agreements, and over the fullness of time, we'd be quite happy to release that, but there is an element of a standstill.
Okay.
We tend to respect that, Josh.
Okay. Just another question for the Gold Fields team. You know, the size of this transaction looks to offset some of the declines, at least that we forecast for Salares Norte. You know, the team it sounds like has been reasonably active on M&A. What is Gold Fields perspective on further pursuit of M&A after this deal has been announced?
I think, Josh, we're gonna take some breathing space now. I think we've got enough to keep ourselves busy now. As Adrian said, you know, we've got the deal in Ghana, we're commissioning Salares Norte at the moment. I think we've got more than enough to keep us busy for a while now, and we wanna make this work.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from Ovais Habib of Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Hi, John and Martin. Congrats on the JV. Just a couple of questions from me, and primarily for John. Now that you've gonna have a JV partner to build Windfall, does this give you or provide you and your team the chance to look at other projects to build on Osisko's project portfolio? Or will you kinda focus on Windfall first? Is that the focus for the near term?
We're absolutely gonna focus on Windfall near term, Ovais. It's a good question, our 100% focus is still on the deposit itself. As I mentioned earlier, we could spend a long time just continuing exploring internally and laterally from where we have defined mineralization that I'm certain we're not gonna run out of targets for a long time. The down plunge potential of this deposit is exceptional, as we've shown from deeper drilling. The near deposit potential is very high. Every time we tried to put drills out there over the last three or four years, we had to pull them back because of shortage of drillers. You know, had a lot of infill holes to get that resource that everybody was paying for.
No, we're certainly not gonna go out and look for other things in other parts of either Quebec or the country. We've got our hands full here for the foreseeable future and certainly for the balance of my career, just finding new deposits around Windfall.
I think John's longevity of 100 years, I think is enough to keep us, all busy there.
Yeah.
I think it's gonna go past to mine John's retirement.
Yeah. No, it's again, the nature of the main deposit itself is exceptional. We are certain that there are more deposits.
I guess that's kind of the reason why you wanted to keep that 50% on the JV side and not give it away 100%.
Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, look, if you, if you go back to what happened with Canadian Malartic, Ovais, that would have been the only thing that, Sean, Bob, and I ever did, if we'd have managed to keep it. You know, when we sold the company, we had 13 million ounces. We put the discovery holes into Odyssey, which is really just part of the old East Malartic system. We didn't have enough time during the hostile takeover to drill it out. We were eventually going to get to it. You know, anybody doubts it, you know, the guys who drilled 1 million meters a year almost, you know, you can be certain we would have defined it.
You know, it's, there's enough meat on the bone here to find a lot of things in the future, and really, this is gonna keep us fully occupied, as we go forward. You know, certainly the value for Osisko shareholders, even though we are taking a partner for 50% of this deposit, is that the market hasn't been paying us for 50% of the deposit. They haven't been paying us for a fraction of this deposit. We honestly believe that this is much larger just as a standalone Windfall, but certainly everything else has been discounted. Certainly the department at Gold Fields, we're gonna knock over some tables and throw a few chairs around and find some more deposits in the near term. I'm quite certain of that.
Perfect. Thanks. Thanks for that color. Second question, just, you know, can you just provide us what we should expect over the next 12 months, just in terms of, you know, any sort of updates, as well as just touch upon a little bit on the permitting side as well, John?
Yep, sure. Completion of power line, completion of the IBA, coming up the other side of permitting, next year, construction release from the Quebec government, then start of construction. You know, really, the project is derisked at that point. Remember this, from the last, you know, the mine build we did at Canadian Malartic, this is all just time driven. We do have an exploration program in progress that we started back in January. We will, you know, I think, accelerate that now, with emphasis with our new partner, Gold Fields.
You know, you stand by any given week where depending on how the drills do, we may turn up some other interesting things, but really it's to mark progress of the deposit moving forward and coming to that production date. The project's gone very smoothly over the last seven years. It has been a lot of drilling, but it's a very big deposit. You know, certainly I think we'll be newsy as a joint venture going forward. Certainly we expect to hit those milestones relatively within the schedule that we presented previously as a standalone company. We don't see any obstacles in front of us.
Perfect. Sounds good, guys. That's it for me, and thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you, Luis.
Thank you. The next question is from Kerry Smith of Haywood Securities. Please go ahead.
Thanks, operator. Martin, just on the feasibility study, was Gold Fields comfortable with the capital operating cost estimates that were developed by the feasibility, or how did you view that study?
We've obviously, as I said earlier, been talking to Osisko for over a year now. Our team, obviously as part of the due diligence, has looked through that. I think John referenced a short while ago that our technical teams from our technical office in Australia has been actually doing some detailed work on some parts of the feasibility with John, more specifically around the process plant, I think where a lot of the capital sits. I think John can talk for himself, but I'm sure we've added value to each other there. We've looked at the capital. I think we believe the capital is reasonable. We.
I like John's comment that, you know, it obviously was in when the inflation was running wild, and he sees some upside potential in that capital. I think we've spent 12 months doing due diligence, so we're comfortable. If you. We recognize now while we go through the permitting, we're gonna do more work with John and his team. I think, one, you want to get that engineering up from that 30%-40% to closer to sort of 85%-90%. That's gonna give us all a lot more confidence. I think we're gonna complement each other and come out with a great technical solution, but I think more importantly, a great techno-economic solution. John, you might wanna add to what I've said. Yeah, sure.
Maybe I'll let Don Meggersen, our Chief Operating Officer, just say a few words about, you know, what we're seeing in capital reduction and some opportunities we have in terms of maximizing the efforts of the two teams now being together.
Yeah. Thanks, John. I mean, really what we see at Windfall is we have a lot of infrastructure in place already, so how do we use what we've got? That, as John mentioned on the call, we have 12.5 kilometers of underground development already finished. How can we work within the ore body off that infrastructure so we can use what we've got? Also if we have to expand the ramp then we can expand the throughput, multiple phases, open up different zones within the ore body itself. That'll give us a lot of flexibility. It also gives us lots of optionality to reduce costs, throughput. There won't be any bottlenecks in the ramp at all because all the infrastructure will be in place before we start production. With respect to the mill, the footprint's gonna be fairly small and compact.
Everything will be under one roof, the warehousing and everything, so you won't be driving all over the place to find things. It'll be right at your fingertips. We're really trying to set ourselves up for success here. We've visited a lot of different operations over the last few years. How do we do things right? Taking the good from what everybody has to offer so we can avoid the bad. Those are really the things that we're focusing on here to make Windfall a world-class operation.
Thanks, Don. Okay, thank you, Don. John, can you talk a little bit about the process that you went through to get to this JV? Were there other parties interested? Can you talk at all about that?
Yeah. Hi, Kerry. The market's obviously aware that we were examining a JV proposal about a year ago. It shouldn't have come as much of a surprise as I think it did to the market that today we're here with Gold Fields talking about our joint venture partnership. You know, certainly, Windfall as a deposit is a very attractive one. I think you can assume that there's been a lot of interest from many parties about different aspects of what we might do together, not just even recently, but over the years. Certainly once we started talking to Gold Fields, you know, there was very quick synergy in terms of how they looked at the deposit.
You know, I think that they certainly recognize within Windfall many things that they've seen in some of their active mines. You know, it's one thing that we've strangely had a bit of trouble with convincing the market about in terms of the robustness of this deposit. You know, it's been a long time since people in Canada have seen a truly high-grade mine developed. That was brand new. I think some people have forgotten, you know, some of the metrics on these things and how profitable they can be and, you know, the what the grade means in terms of cash flow.
you know, ideally, as part of today's transaction, having the validation and, you know, support of Gold Fields in terms of recognizing what we've done and believing in that model is, I think a very strong point that was made for them becoming eventually our joint venture partner, Perry. Maybe we had some choice in the matter, but, you know, we sit here today with our partner, Gold Fields, and we're looking forward to going forward to develop Windfall.
Right. Maybe just one last question for the for both groups? Is it the intention or do you think that 3,400 tons a day is the right size for the plant on a long-term basis? Do you think that as a JV now it's likely that this mill could be larger over the course of time? I know you're planning to push through with the current permit application and not upset the permitting process, obviously, but I'm just thinking about the longer term.
Yeah, certainly in terms of the permitting process. This is where a lot of people get confused about permitting time, you know, I've heard lots of wild estimates about things taking years and years. There have been projects that have suffered from unusually long permitting processes, but that's because they've introduced design changes after submitting their proposal. Every time you make a major design change in how you intend to process, you basically reset the clock to zero. No, I don't believe we're planning any process design changes. In the feasibility, we were talking about 3,400 tons a day.
Certainly, in the future, as the deposit starts to show its quality and as the deposit starts to open up, it may be considered by the joint venture partnership, but it'll be a joint venture partnership decision.
Yeah. I think I fully concur with John, that we need to get this up and running, prove its potential and, you know, let it tell its story, and I think it's got a good story to tell.
Right. John, just remind me, I know a 5,000 ton a day is kind of the threshold for a small mine in Quebec. Is it much easier to permit from, say, 3,400 up to 5,000 tons a day once you're up and running, or does it even require a permit amendment? Just remind me how that works.
Yes, you need permits, but below 5,000 tons, and this was recently amended, you're not subject to the federal EA process if it is below 5,000 tons a day.
Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Understand. Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question is from Don DeMarco of National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.
Well, thank you, operator, and congratulations, Martin and John. First question for Martin. Martin, you mentioned that this is a measured entry into tier one jurisdiction. Does this imply potential for outright acquisition of Windfall at some point? If so, what would be needed to get there?
No. I think when we say measured, maybe referencing, last year at the Yamana transaction, certainly we.
Yeah.
Not looking at outright acquisition. We very much, see this as a marriage and, we see this partnership, we wanna forge ahead with this partnership and build a strong partnership. I think both parties have got very unique skills and capabilities, and I think collectively, we'll be able to do something, very special and that one and one is gonna equal a lot more than two.
That actually segues into my next question, 'cause Martin, your team lends for some of the technical de-risking during mine construction. So you're gonna be deploying your team up there. Can you tell us what this looks like? How many people on site in Quebec, where will they be coming from and so on?
We won't be deploying teams there. As I've touched on earlier, and Don is most probably better positioned than I am, the joint venture will appoint a management company. It won't be run by either of the partners. It'll be a separate company that runs it. What we will do at an arm's length basis is, as the JV needs technical support, it will be through agreement that we might have a better metallurgist or a better geologist, I doubt it, than Vasisco, and that we might need those services, and those will be called in on an arm's length basis. We won't be deploying.
I see. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. I'll just side chain in there for you, Don. I mean, you know, and back to what I was saying earlier, we have a full fighting team, and we've been developing one over the past couple of years. You know, again, oftentimes people forget that we do have operating experience. You know, many of the members of Osisko Mining have worked in lots of mines. We have a deep network, both internally within the company and the group. We've been building a team for the past couple of years. You know, certainly I think this is one of the attractions for Gold Fields is that, you know, there's no startup period, where you have to kind of think about what's gonna happen for the next 6 months.
We're continuing operations today and tomorrow as we were yesterday, with the same people. As we evolve closer towards a production decision and having our permits and getting a construction release, there may be some additions to staff, there may be some changes, but that's normal for any company. That would have been our course of action as a standalone company to go and build Windfall. We're proceeding at all possible speed as we were yesterday.
Okay. Just to be clear, will the development?
Be performed by the Osisko team that's in place right now, or will it be a third party, another company that comes in and just supervised by Osisko and by an arm's length by Gold Fields?
I'll start, John. The employees that were working on the mine, this morning worked for Osisko, and my understanding is they now work for a new company, that is the management company. That's what's happened. Maybe, John, you wanna elaborate on that?
Don, I'll simplify it for you. New hats. That's it.
Oh.
Okay. When it comes to operating again, it's the JV operating, the JV management company will be operating, develop the mine and operate the mine.
Yeah. Look, it. Yeah, it'll look very similar to the, those Malartic partnership deals, where you had, you know, with the exception that you have true, equal partnership and management. You know, we look forward to, you know, any advice and inputs and guidance that Gold Fields can give us. I mean, they are a senior producing global long-standing gold producer. We have an excellent team, but, you know, we're not naive enough to think that we know everything. You know, certainly, there may have been some things that we've developed in terms of concepts of how to approach deposit and mining because we've done extensive work on it.
This is exactly what makes a good joint venture partnership work, is that we share these ideas and pick the best ones. We economize on costs and maximize on production profits. You know, this is the whole rationale and reason behind having the partnership.
Excellent. Okay. Congratulations again, and good luck on next steps. That's all for me.
Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from John Tumazos of John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead.
John. Good morning, John.
John, just check that your line isn't muted. Okay, we're gonna move on to the next question, and we'll just check up with John to make sure that we can hear him. The next question is from Jason Fairclough of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
It's actually Jason Fairclough from Bank of America. Thanks for the call, guys. Super interesting deal. I had just a couple simple questions. I wanted to make sure that the JV really just takes into account Windfall, so it doesn't include any of the other Osisko properties. If you were to try to roll those in, would there be additional payments to be made? The second question is.
Yeah, that's it.
Sorry, go ahead.
The full exploration package is part of the deal.
Okay. and that includes-
Being followed through development.
Yeah. It includes Golden Bear, includes Urban Barry, includes Quévillon.
That's right.
We have approximately 2,400 sq km of claims, in which the Windfall deposit is situated. They're all part of today's transaction.
Okay. Basically everything. The other question was, could you just remind us, what are the royalties that have been written on these, the properties, please?
There were historical royalties from previous operators that date back into the 1990s and/or 1980s even. On the foundation deal of the company in 2015, and this, you know, really Osisko Mining Inc. was formed from bits and pieces of the result into Osisko Gold Royalties, you know, what we were left over with after the hostile takeover and starting this new royalty company. You know, crazily, we were insane enough to try and merge 7 companies together as a starting transaction. We ended up getting 4 of them in the transaction, mostly for the cash balances. The Urban Barry, Windfall project came from, what was previously Eagle Hill, Ned Goodman, another major shareholder on most of it.
As a part of that formation deal, we granted Osisko Gold Royalties for funding $20 million into the new company, the right to buy 1% royalty for $5 million, which they eventually exercised in the subsequent year. They also had the rights to buybacks of existing royalties that existed on the claims prior to our getting involved. We've never actually sold a royalty outside of the formational deal royalty before we stepped foot on Windfall or the first drop. There's no intention to issue any letters. You know, their 2%-3% NSR royalty is a result of basically just amalgamating what were historical buybacks from prior previous operators on the 1% that we granted in 2015. It's probably the best royalty deal they've ever done.
If my understanding is correct, they're currently sitting somewhere at about a, you know, $50 million-$75 million profit for having taken the 2%-3% royalties.
Okay. All right. Appreciate the color. Thanks.
Thanks.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, just a final reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please raise star and one. We'll pause a moment to see if we have any further questions. We have a question from Arnold van Graan of Nedbank CIB. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you very much, Martin. Just a quick one from our side. I know it's been asked, I just want to clarify. Are sticking to your dividend policy, which implies you could obviously use your balance sheet to fund the acquisition and the construction and the CapEx around this. Can you just give us a sense of how this will impact your gearing levels over the next two to three years? Thank you.
Paul will give you an answer.
Arnold, as I said on the first question that Adrian asked, remember, next year is a very big year for us, so obviously we take the CAD 300 million, now CAD 240 million. I mean, obviously this year gold prices have been a lot higher than what we anticipated. Next year with Salares Norte coming online, you won't have a material movement on our gearing. 'Cause remember next year as well, not only are we getting the cash from Salares Norte, we're getting substantial EBITDA. In terms of net debt to EBITDA, we're not gonna move much. We're probably not above 0.5, and I think we were at 0.39 at the end of last year. That's the way we see it.
Perfect. Thank you very much. Cheers. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have no further questions in the queue, and I'd like to hand back to the management team for some closing comments.
John, if I can start, I think firstly and most importantly, you know, John talks about the value that partners bring, and one of the things we are looking forward to with working with Osisko is, I think the word that comes to my mind is agility. You know, they've demonstrated agility and certainly we are looking forward to that. I think they've demonstrated great exploration, construction, permitting and operating capability in a tier one jurisdiction. We're really excited to be there. We, you know, I wanna thank John and the Osisko team for agreeing to marry us. You know, it's a very important day for us in Gold Fields.
We're very excited about it and we're looking for a long and happy marriage with many children in new mines as we explore the full extent of this deposit. I think lastly from my side is I'd just like to thank the many women and men, I think from both teams, from John's team, from our team, that have worked tirelessly for the last year, and I would argue most probably in the last week they've done a year's work trying to get the agreements finalized, all the terms finalized. I'm sure they're all looking forward to going home and trying to get a night or two's good sleep.
From my side, and I'm sure I can talk on behalf of John, is just to thank the many people that have worked tirelessly to make sure that our partnership is consummated properly and in a way that it will be sustained. Thank you very much. Thank you, John, and over to you.
Yeah. Hear, hear. I'll second what you say, Martin. The tremendous work done by your team and our team to get the work done and close up the deal. We're looking forward as a corporation, as a group, as explorers and mine builders to moving Windfall to the next step. Really, I see today as the first day towards a new mine at Windfall, and hopefully this will be one of many to come in the future, as Martin referred to. We're excited by the partnership. There's certainly some work ahead of us, but we are very optimistic that this, you know...
The work we've done at Windfall to date has put this deposit in a position to overperform, and I think we're certainly gonna see that come through as we get through the work and get this mine built and get on with exploration to find additional new deposits. Thank you.
Thank you, Chris. Thanks, John.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that then concludes today's event, and you may now disconnect your lines.