Thank you very much, everyone. Thanks for making the time. I know it's getting late in the day, and you're probably getting excited about a drink or a coffee. We really appreciate you making the time. As you can see, a very famous and world-class Swedish company who we are very, very proud to partner with in Sandvik on our screen. We utilize fully electric equipment, all with Sandvik semi-autonomous trucks, scoops, jumbos, everything, because we're designing the mine to be the world's first carbon-neutral copper mine. It's in construction right now, so very advanced. Okay, sorry, it's just a bit slow. There we are. Okay, I'm going to go through it fairly quickly, just so that we can have some more time for Q&A. I think that's a bit more better. We can get into the crux of the information there.
But in short, Foran, as we said, copper, gold, silver, and zinc, a polymetallic mine being built in construction right now. The way we think about it, for us, everything we do, we do to maximize the value per share. Every decision we make is to maximize value per share. So to get there, you have to identify and address the three key risks. The three key risks in taking a greenfield copper project into becoming a producer: permitting risk, financing risk, and execution risk. Those are the three things. Permitting risk, we've taken care of. We fully permitted. We got our EIS approved in July 2023 and have now got all our construction permit packages underway. And as we said, the mine is in construction. Financing, that is becoming harder and harder in today's environment where I think the capital markets are still not there for mining companies.
This conference is fantastic, and the fact that it's the inaugural conference, I think we can all say, says a lot about just where the capital markets are for mining, but for us, it was very important. You see, we've got an asset that's going to go for multiple generations, multiple decades already. It's over 40-50 years and showing a path to 70-80 years, so we think about our project and our deposit as an infrastructure company because we want to run this like an infrastructure asset forever, so getting the financing right is super important, so we didn't want to stream away our gold or our silver or our zinc or anything like that. We wanted to make sure that we did the right balance of equity and debt to ensure that we, again, what I said at the beginning, maximize the value per share.
So that's how we did that. And we've done, and I'll talk you through some of our key strategic investors on the equity side in a second. And then I'll come back to that. But let me address the third risk and the third key point, which is your execution risk. So today, very, very difficult to get good people in mining. We've been very, very fortunate to have G Mining Services come in and lead our construction. They have a proven track record of everything on budget and ahead of schedule. So we've had them come in and do it. It's the exact same team that did a fantastic job for Lundin Gold, another famous company with heritage here. And it's the exact same group that have come and partnered with us.
So if we talk back to financing and back to the importance of your share register, for junior companies that, and I say junior, we say sort of sub one billion and then moving to one to two billion market cap and then taking the next step above two billion. For companies to do that, you really have to get your share register right. And why that's so important is because these things take a long time. These projects just take a long time. So you need to have long-term capital, people who can withstand the ebbs and flows, the troughs and ups and downs and all of that. And that's why we did that. So we had about CAD 250 million of investment from Fairfax, which is a Canadian sort of equivalent of Berkshire Hathaway, very long-term focused. And they've invested with us. They own 22%.
Agnico Eagle have invested around $175 million into the company now for 9.9%. Agnico Eagle are one of the most fantastic partners you can have. I think their reputation in the Nordics sort of speaks for itself and how their share price has performed over the last 20 years and how they've built a company, and they've built their company all centered around the LaRonde asset. That's what got them going, and the LaRonde asset was a VMS system. Sweden is famous for it as well, with Zinkgruvan and Boliden had as well. There's a reason why these companies have been around for generations, because when you find these VMS assets, they can become a company maker, so that's what we've got, and that's why we were super excited to partner with Agnico. Where we are, Saskatchewan, just on the border of Manitoba.
The previous speaker was explaining a little bit about that. So the timing was quite fortuitous. But you can see where we are. The big thing really is you've got established infrastructure: brand new highway, railway lines, hydroelectric power station. And that's another key reason why we are so focused on the sustainability and the electrification of our equipment and vehicles, is not because we just want to do it for the ESG rating. It's a business decision. Everything I said, it comes back to maximizing value per share. We have very cheap hydro power at CAD 0.06 per kW h. We would use that rather than paying CAD 0.20 per kW h for diesel or other expensive fuel for your equipment. You also have much more productivity.
And in places like Canada, very similar to Sweden, where you have high labor costs, your productivity is super important because that's what will drop your unit cost. And that's what in turn enhances your economics. So these are the things why all this type of infrastructure matters so much. You can see here a little bit in red is the outline of McIlvenna Bay. That's our first deposit. It's an aerial view. Usually, we would show you this in VRIFY and take you underground and show you the mine plan. You can see an image of it on the right. Oh, sorry, you can't actually see that. Now you can see that. And I think if you look at the top, the best thing about this project is not the high grades and all of that, which I'll get to, which are very nice.
It's how close the deposit starts from the surface. It starts 30 m below the surface. So from a capital intensity perspective, it's significantly lower than another type of copper project. And for us, we're a single asset company. We don't have other assets with cash flow. So you have to finance it with equity and debt to maximize your value per share, as I will keep saying. And you guys will get very tired of me to keep repeating myself, but it is so important to us. It's these kinds of things that matter. And this is one of the unique characteristics of the deposit and of the company. Where are we today in terms of a timeline? I think this is what matters most. As I said, it takes a very, very long time to get here.
But we are now here, permitted, financed, feasibility and detailed engineering done, construction underway. We're into the underground. We've developed the 30 m, 60 m, 90 m, 120 m levels already and into the deposit now. We are building the surface. We're erecting steel next month. The SAG and ball mills have arrived at site, procured all our long lead items. And as I said at the beginning, God, G Mining Services is the best in the business to build it. This is a photo of site. This looks a lot different today. This is about two months old. And you're going to see in the next time I show you a photo, you'll see an update from the company in a month. It'll be much more different. Again, just very proud of our Swedish partnership with Sandvik.
Just these are some of the new pieces of equipment in action here, all electric, as I said, and some semi-autonomous too. Then this is a very exciting point because not only do you create a hell of a lot of value by going through and addressing the three key risks: the permitting, the financing, the execution, and building. That was our Phase I. We are now thinking about Phase II because really this is where you get the real talk for a company and for your equity holders when you can scale up because, again, it comes back to scaling an asset can significantly reduce your overall unit cost. In terms of an IRR on the incremental ton that you bring in, it's significantly more well and truly over 100%. This is a big focus for us.
We've been extremely lucky with a new discovery, Tesla. We then discovered Bridge, and that connected the two deposits. Yeah, we're still exploring Tesla. It still keeps surprising us. We're finding a very gold-rich zone, high-grade zones of copper, zinc, silver as well. Early days, but very, very exciting and looking to be an extremely large deposit. We'll say more about that in the coming weeks. I think I touched on this earlier when we were talking about Agnico Eagle and I mentioned Zinkgruvan and Lundin Mining and Boliden. These VMS systems. Sorry, it's not only the scalability, but it's the long-life nature of them that make them company makers. Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto is another example. Rio Tinto used to be called RTZ, Rio Tinto Zinc, which started in the Iberian Pyrite Belt in Spain. Look what that company has become.
So these assets really are, when done right, company makers. We are very, very proud and very grateful to have Agnico as our partner in doing this. We've got a joint technical committee with them and leveraging their expertise and R&D on a lot of the construction and operational sides with that. This is a little bit on our phase two. And just to show you what it looks like, that blue line in the middle is our shaft and then bringing in the Tesla deposit and what you do from there in terms of how you double your production further. And then the regional exploration, something that's quite unique for us is what we are doing in terms of our regional exploration while we're doing a build.
A lot of companies would stop their exploration because capital is so constraining for a lot of mining companies today. We've taken the opposite approach. We look at things on the balance of probabilities and analyze it accordingly. And when I talk about probabilities, I'm talking about the statistics in terms of discovery. VMSs appear in clusters. So you've got a significantly higher probability of making an additional discovery once you've got one already. So it would be a shame to stop and not capitalize on all that knowledge and information and keep going and keep that momentum going. Catalysts, we've got a number of them coming. But I think the biggest one for us, and which is the most relevant from you, is really where the companies are today. We are three to six months out from where that re-rate will start coming from developer to producer.
At the same time, we will have that additional bucket of value creation through the exploration that I just outlined on the district and the regional. But when you go through all the work that we've gone through and now get to this point, this is when a lot of the generalist investors and a lot more of the bigger passive money can then start to come into play. And that's typically why you see producers re-rate compared to a developer. So very, very exciting time for the company. And yeah, I think I'll leave it at that today and open it up to any more questions or anything else.
Thank you. So you had a slide here saying critical metals champions.
Yes.
Yes. And.
I'm back to it.
Yeah. So walk us through there. Copper and then going into critical metals.
Yeah.
That's a lot on your plate.
It is a lot. Yeah.
So.
We've got a very good team.
Okay, so could you just elaborate a little bit on that? I will be the devil's advocate here and I will say that, okay, but aren't you spreading your focus a little bit here, or indeed, will there be synergies?
Well, I think, yeah, it's a good question in terms of how you spread your focus. So we have to sort of, you've got effectively like two key teams, but they have to work very closely together. So we've got an exploration and geoscience team and then a construction and project team together, but both reporting to myself and the COO and the executive committee of the company. Now, it is a lot on your plate, but the value creation when done right is tremendous. The other thing is a lot of the time, people negate how important the geoscientists are for underground mines and once you get into the deposit and helping you to optimize the mining methods. So we have a lot of that crossover today. So rather than sort of seeing it as a negative, it's actually a huge positive for us.
And also, as we have this picture here, you have some interesting investors here, Fairfax and Agnico. Who found who? Did they knock on your door or did you knock on their door? Or how does it work?
Yeah, no, it's a very good question. I mean, it's like how you, I think if I remember back, so Fairfax, because they came into us in 2021 first and recently added another CAD 100 million investment in July. Fairfax, we were introduced to them by a mutual investor called Kirill Sokoloff who publishes a report called 13D and Prem Watsa, the founder of Fairfax, Pierre Lassonde. And then so it all came together. And then the other thing about mining is it's a very, very small community. So that's Agnico. I think they got news of the discoveries and sort of how we were advancing. And they built their company off LaRonde, which I was showing in that VMS comparison slide. So I think they're always on the lookout. They're an exceptionally well-run company and they're on the lookout early for things.
They bring, obviously, well, cash to the table, but do they bring anything else? They open doors and they have a seat on the board and stuff like that.
Correct. Yeah. So they have a seat on the board. They've got the option to put someone on. They haven't actually put anyone on. But then we have cash, is always nice. But the best thing about it would be the technical committee because they've just invested so much more in R&D and their people and experience. So we are able to sort of, they're like our big brother and we can sort of leverage off some of their expertise. And our cultures are very similar. So it just works really well. And I think that's super important. You've got to make sure you partner with the right company that's got the right culture.
I may have got this wrong here, but I understand that you're the only environmental permit approved single asset developer. Is that correct?
Yeah.
Okay. So first, what does that mean? And why only you? Well, you couldn't possibly answer that, but.
Yeah. So I think permitting, and that's why I said as the first key risk, permitting is becoming super, super hard, not just in Canada, but across the world. And it takes a lot of time. You have to do two years of environmental baseline studies. You have to make sure that you've got the right social license. Now, to get the right social license with your indigenous partners or local communities, that takes time. It's not like we're going to go have a drink and I'm going to say, "Cool, now let's get married." You have to develop that trust and show all of that. And then once that happens and takes sort of two years or so, and then you have to go about and work and cater an agreement accordingly.
And also, the other thing that a lot of people don't think about on the regulatory side, so in the ministries of environment, there's just been such a lack of mining for the last 20 years. There's no people on the other side. So you need the governments then to fund the budget and actually get people to come. But there's a real lack of environmental engineers and know-how.
Excellent. Well, thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Fantastic. So we'll give him a round of applause.