Idea of our plans for the future and where we're going. I will be making some forward-looking statements as I talk about the future, and you will reference this cautionary language. This first slide says a lot of things. First of all, it points out that we are a Canadian-focused North American gold producer, producing pro forma basis full-year guidance over 1 million ounces per year. We also have organic growth, which will enable us to move towards 2 million ounces in those exact same four jurisdictions. Currently operating seven mines with the restart of Los Filos. I will talk through the three mines that we have in Canada, the mine that we have in the United States, two growth projects we have there, the two assets we have in Mexico, and of course, our complex in Nicaragua.
Underneath all of that production and cash flow generation, almost 50 million ounces of resources that we can continue to convert into value for our shareholders. I am extremely proud of the company and the platform that we have going forward, starting from a very strong base of 1 million ounces and sequentially growing towards 2 million ounces, still focused in the four countries. The other thing that is an opportunity for investors right now is we have a lot of room to grow on the value perspective. As I mentioned, 70% of our NAV will be focused in Canada and the U.S. We think that is quite unique and something for investors to consider. We will be building scale, but within the regions that we currently operate, which equals a manageable business. We have robust and growing Canadian production.
As I mentioned, 60% of our centroid of production mass is in Canada, with well-established production places like Musselwhite and the growing production enterprises that we have at Greenstone and Valentine as they continue to ramp up. Predictably, we have strong free cash flow. We will talk about how we will invest that free cash flow in growing the value of the business, reducing debt, and reducing the cost of capital, and finally returning to shareholders. We believe that we have an unmatched growth pipeline in a very central part of the world of North America. At 800,000 oz spread across a variety of projects I will speak about, we can expand the portfolio without growing the share count. Finally, in relation to our shareholders, we will grow the pipeline without increasing shares, but we are also increasing dividends and purchasing shares back.
We increased the dividend by 50% at the last quarter, and we will exhaust our share buyback program this year and increase it for next. Finally, across the jurisdictions we are going to talk about, led by a corporate team, we have a team that has a track record of finding gold, building mines, producing cash, and increasing value for shareholders. Here is a glance at our in sequence growth pipeline on top of the over 1 million ounces we currently produce. We have already announced that we will be expanding our operations in Newfoundland. I was at the groundbreaking ceremony at South Railroad earlier this week. That construction is well underway. We will deliver that mine by the end of 2027 for production in 2028. At Castle Mountain, all the while doing the study work necessary for considering our expansions in Mexico.
We have two opportunities in Mexico at our existing operations, both of them heap leach operations, one in Zacatecas, one in Guerrero, that have incredible sulfide endowments below them, that we will devise the best way to extract the most value from each. Some 8 million ounces in Zacatecas and another 8 million ounces in Los Filos that we will devise the best value creation strategy for our Mexican platform, likely doubling our production contribution from Mexico in time. The last slide I'll leave you with is the five key takeaways I'd like you to think about as you're considering investment in Equinox going forward. We are now an absolute senior gold producer. Important, that scale, for your investment consideration.
Musselwhite certainly provides a stable base of production, but we're adding to it two brand-new mines in Greenstone and Valentine, Greenstone offering us considerable scale in Canada and Valentine offering additional growth. Our organic growth that I just outlined on the slide before is not only internally funded but largely de-risked. Some of the projects on brownfield sites that we already have, all of it financed through our existing production platform, and all of it will add value to the company in the years to come. Finally, I'd ask you to consider our proximity to our peers and the fact that we're an outlier on the value perspective. Our share price is on sale. I'd encourage you to buy now. As we increase value, you'll be the benefactors of that. With that, five key takeaways. I'll have a seat and we'll answer some Q&A. Thank you.
Where do you want me to sit, here?
Okay.
Well, thank you for the presentation.
Sure.
That was a great way to set the stage. Maybe just to drill a bit further on the most recent transaction, can you talk about the Equinox-Orla merger and why it was such a compelling business proposition to you and the team?
Yeah, I think both companies were on a pace to create value. Both of us were already demonstrating delivery of that value. The growth in each company was going to come in a matter of time, and the combination of the two businesses immediately catapults us to that senior gold producer status, gives us a greater base of production and cash flow generation that allows us to grow that value creation more quickly. Finally, we both had compelling growth opportunities in each company, and now on a combined basis, a question I get a lot is, how are you going to sequence the combined portfolio? Hopefully, the slide that I just delivered gives you some impression of how we're going to do that. Our intention would be to engineer, construct, and ramp up in sequence at any given time, one mine at a time.
In doing those, in that staged fashion, we'll create value for the years to come.
Great. You've been President of Equinox for a couple of months. You will become CEO, congratulations, by the way, at the end of October. Under your leadership, do you anticipate any changes to the broader strategy of the company? How would you articulate that?
Yeah. One thing I could offer that will change, I think the combinations that have occurred over the past several years to bring us to this state, has set the stage for Equinox Gold to be exactly where it wants to be. So what I can offer probably will change is our appetite for M&A. We're where we want it to get to, that plus million ounce producer, with a growth pipeline that we don't have to acquire from others, and cash generation to pay for it all. So what we'll pivot towards is focus on execution and delivery. And what I mean by that is we need to continue to drill the ground that we have. We have four very prospective jurisdictions across our sites that can deliver more gold. We'll need to deliver on our production commitments at the cost specified.
And finally, we need to build wells so that we can grow that production platform from 1 million ounces to 2 million ounces. So our focus in the company going forward will be just to put our heads down and execute on the company as it stands.
Great. And you've mentioned that you've toured most of the sites during the first six weeks with Equinox Gold. What have you learned from those site visits? Where do you see the challenges? Where do you see the upside?
Yeah, I definitely have a perspective of learning from the ground up. So it's true, I've visited almost all of the sites now for the second or third time that I've been to those sites. And importantly, the time that I've spent there has been to make sure that the team is focused on what they need to deliver. What are the targets that we need from each of the assets? What does their delivery mean for the value creation of the company? But the other things that I've seen are that, as we knew from the due diligence, they all have tremendous potential. And to deliver that potential, you need teams. And what I'm very proud to say is each company, and now the combined company, has incredible teams at each site that can deliver the value.
Our role from the top is to make sure that we understand where the value is created. It's created at the mine site, so that's where I started, and that they understand what they need to deliver for the company. Each jurisdiction has several opportunities.
Great. Canada is becoming your key regional hub now with three sizable operations in the country. You still have good amount of exposure in countries like Mexico and Nicaragua. How do you think about investing in each of those jurisdictions compared to what the portfolio in Canada and the U.S.?
Yeah. The 52% in Canada growing to 70% when we add the U.S. to the portfolio, 70% centroid in U.S. and Canada is certainly a good foundation. But I want to be clear, Calibre was born out of Nicaragua, Orla was born out of Mexico, and so nobody can convince Darren or I that you can't create tremendous value from those locations. We each graduated into the United States and then Canada subsequently, and we're able to combine these two great companies, to form the platform that we have today. But the simplest way to think about how we think about jurisdictional risk is the reward far outweighing the risk? And in situations where we are convinced that it does, we'll continue to invest and we'll continue to deliver the kind of rewards that Nicaragua and Mexico has delivered for the independent companies, now in a combined fashion.
When things change in the world and the risk outweighs the reward, then we'll have to move away the investment from those particular jurisdictions. And that's as simply as I can offer that we consider jurisdictional risk. The interesting thing about the combined company, of course, is it's all North American focused. There are certainly different jurisdictions around the world. We are proud to have a North American focused company.
Great. One of the things you highlighted in your slides was just the tremendous growth of the company. There are very few companies that are nearly doubling their production. There is an ambition to get to almost 2 million ounces per year. What is the timeline to get there? How realistic is this, considering there will be depletion during that growth phase? Just maybe touch on the funding of these projects.
Yeah. Let us start with the depletion part of your question, which is, it is clear in our business, we always have to drill, to keep the business going. We are putting our money where our mouth is. We currently have 45 drills turning across North America. Over 300 km of drill meterage has been done already this year. We will get closer to 400 km by the end of the year, and that is only going to increase in 2027. We focus our drilling around the existing assets and infrastructure that we have, so we can certainly extend mine life, and that will aid us with the depletion. As it relates to the assets we have and the sequence of growth, well, we have already begun. We have begun expanding Newfoundland. As I mentioned, we have broken ground in Nevada and are building that asset.
We will methodically, over the years to come, build the next assets, depending on the value it generates for the business and keeping in mind commodity price and cash flow into the business. We will always keep the business balanced such that we can invest in our own drilling and building to produce more gold, our ability to reduce the cost of capital, and still have cash left over to return to investors, all of that being done without increasing the share count. That, depending on the movement of the commodity price, a very difficult day today, but depending on the movement of the commodity price, the free cash flow from each asset, and the cost of building and drilling, that is what will decide where we are spending our money, and the timeline for that will be measured over the next three to five years.
Great. We have talked about the growth largely by adding assets through acquisitions. On the opposite end of the spectrum, as you think about potential divestments, would you consider some more divestments to optimize the portfolio similar to what was done with the sale of the Brazilian mines earlier in the year?
Yeah. I think the Brazilian divestiture was for a purpose. First, to reduce the debt of the company and second, to refocus the company on North America. When you work in different regions, as they get farther and farther away, that creates an enormous strain on the management team. Ideally, if you can focus the management team regionally, like we have in North America, that's more ideal. If you can reduce debt, which is what the sale of Brazil did, that gives us different opportunities to grow within that North American portfolio. I work for Vale, so I know Brazil, but I think that the choice made to divest Brazil served the purpose it was intended to do. I do not believe that you can divest your way to success.
I do believe that we need to find gold, build mines, and grow the value of the company. But in instances like the Brazil sale and potentially future instances where it serves a purpose that increases the value of the business, we'll certainly consider it. The platform, as we've presented today, of Canada, U.S., Mexico, and Nicaragua for Equinox Gold is the proposition we'd make for investors to consider. That's what's producing the 1 million ounces a year. That's also the same place that we're going to push ourselves towards 2 million ounces. At this stage, it's all core for us.
Great. As you think about the back-to-back mergers with Calibre and then Orla, thinking maybe three to five years from now, how would you, I guess, assess the success of those transactions looking back?
I think I'll measure it in the share price. I think that's the best way to measure our success, is the share price, and I think the combinations over the past few years have put us in a position to have a platform that we can create a lot of value from. Whether it's discovery through the exploration drilling, whether it's building, like South Railroad, new mines in great jurisdictions like Nevada, which that asset alone, I could spend a half an hour describing the potential of Nevada and what we have there. We are set up as a company through those combinations, to deliver tremendous value for our investors. So we'll measure the success of that endeavor by the share price and creation of wealth for our shareholders.
Great. If you think about capital allocation, you have increased the dividend by 50% last quarter. As we have talked about, the growth pipeline requires significant funding over the next five years. You also have a buyback program, and I think there will be quite a bit of exploration spending across the portfolio. Maybe just walk through those competing priorities and how you think about capital allocation going forward.
Yeah. I spoke about this in the opening. I think this is not unique to Equinox. We, as mining companies, need to make sure that we have sufficient income into the business that allows us to allocate that capital back out into the business in three ways. One is invest in growing the platform of the company such that the company is more valuable tomorrow than it is today. That looks like drilling, building, and producing more. Take the rest of the money, keep your debt to a reasonable level, and reduce the cost of capital through better instruments, and lower debt levels. Then finally, of course, return to shareholders, whether that is increases in the dividend or share buybacks to reduce the share count.
What I would offer we need to consider in the years going forward is as the commodity price moves, as we move into different phases of the build cycle, as we see different profitability from different assets, we need to balance all of that so that we have sufficient free cash flow to do all three things. When we find ourselves in a situation because of the commodity price or other, we need to pull back on growth. We may need to utilize our revolving credit facility to get us through a period. It will always be in consideration of delivering more value back to shareholders. Where we need to, we may need to pace ourselves more in our growth aspirations.
Okay, if I may, in the last 30 seconds or so, your thoughts on the gold price and the
Yeah. I am a miner, a mining engineer, and I've been raised to think more long term. You don't build mines overnight, and the value sometimes takes some time to come. I think the fundamentals for gold haven't changed. I think there's a few things in the world that are happening today that'll affect it in the short term. But as sovereign nations continue to increase debt, inflation continues as it has been, and sovereign nations start to move away from the U.S. dollar and invest in gold as they have done considerably in the last few years, the fundamentals for gold are fantastic. But we'll always run our business responsibly, much lower reserve resource prices that we utilize, making sure project economics are based upon the time that that gold will be delivered to our shareholders, and try and make sensible choices.
But yeah, as a gold mining executive, I have a very strong conviction about the upward trajectory of the gold price.
Great. I think that's a good place to stop. Jason, thank you very much. That was excellent.
Thank you.