Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking a few minutes to get an update on NOVAGOLD. As I'm sure everybody understands, our presentation does include some forward-looking materials. NovaGold went through a really significant transaction a couple of months ago, and I'm going to share the details with you in our presentation this morning. You know, probably the most important aspect of this transaction is we now have a partner who, one, believes in gold, and we also have a partner who shares our vision that now is the time to update the feasibility study and move this project forward to a construction decision.
Our new partner is John Paulson and companies associated with Paulson Advisors. The transaction was very simple. We teamed up together to buy out Barrick's 50% interest in Donlin. You know, the transaction has closed. Through this transaction, Paulson put up $800 million for 40% of the project. NovaGold put up $200 million. We now have 60% ownership of Donlin within NovaGold.
Other aspects of this transaction: we had a promissory note to Barrick that had a face value of about $150 million at the time. We have the option to pay this note off within 18 months of the closing for $100 million. You know, pursuant to the financing of this deal, we also issued warrants to several of our major shareholders to support our financial needs to raise $200 million. You know, Paulson is a well-known gold investor.
You know, they've been involved with Agnico Eagle, Detour, Perpetua, Artemis, and other companies, including Tower Hill up in Alaska. You know, they are a very well-seasoned, educated consumer. You know, the fact that John put $800 million of his personal money on the line really is a testament to his conviction in gold and, more importantly, his conviction in the Donlin project. You know, Detour was a company years ago that the Paulson Advisors were involved in. You know, it was when the mine was built. It was struggling. Paulson came in and worked with management, worked with the board, and really turned this company around.
If you had invested with Paulson at this time, you would have made something on the order of five times your investment. So really, they're, you know, great investors to have behind us. They bring a lot to the party. And this is a case study of just recently of another company that Paulson is involved with, Perpetua Resources. They've got a gold antimony project up in Alaska.
And Paulson has been in this story, and they've been working to steadily advance this project. They recently secured almost $2 billion in federal loan guarantees. So Paulson and his associates have a great track record of moving projects forward. You know, it's good to have them on the other side of the table with us now.
Yeah, and I think this is, you know, if you've watched NovaGold for a few years, you've known that, you know, our partner Barrick was uncertain really with what to do with the asset. And as a result of this uncertainty, our share price languished. You know, we've now removed that uncertainty, and the stock price is responding accordingly. You know, and this is really just a snapshot of what happens to companies when they have a path forward and begin to advance their projects.
If you follow NovaGold closely, since we announced this transaction, you know, our shareholders have been rewarded substantially. I think we're really just beginning to see that upward trend as we move forward with Donlin. I really want to share now some of the key attributes of Donlin. I think it's certainly why NovaGold has solely focused our energy on this project and why, you know, we now have a well-educated partner like Paulson Advisors.
You know, Donlin, it's really unique in the gold space. It's one of the largest undeveloped gold deposits in the industry. You know, it's got a tremendous production profile. If this mine was in production in accordance with the feasibility study, it would produce about a million and a half ounces a year for the first five years and average 1.4 million ounces for 10 years.
When you look at the current gold price, you know, the margins at Donlin are approaching $3,000 an ounce. So the math is really quite simple on the significant cash this asset would generate. You know, we've got two and a quarter grams, great grade for an open-pit mine. You know, we've got tremendous exploration potential. We recently released some of the assays from this year's drill program.
And if you've taken note of them, every time we drill at Donlin, we continue to advance the project and our understanding as well as increase the reserves and resources. Tony just presented about Alaska. You know, Alaska is a great mining jurisdiction. We're very comfortable up there. And as the world gets more and more complicated, jurisdictions in the United States and assets in safe places will command a premium. You know, Donlin brings extraordinary leverage to gold price. You know, we continue to need to update this chart to reflect that the prices continue to move higher. You know, for the first time in many years, the increase in gold price has opened up wide margins for all of the gold producers.
That leverage is extraordinary, and it's one of the key assets of Donlin: leverage in a place where you can keep it. You know, when you look at the other projects that are advancing in the gold space, Donlin's output of a million and a half ounces a year for the first five years, life of mine over a million ounces a year makes this one of the largest undeveloped gold producers out there, and you look at the other projects that are being advanced through the industry, really very few compare to Donlin. It's far and away the largest development project in the Americas.
You know, grade is important. You know, the grade at Donlin is two and a quarter grams per ton. That's where the industry was over a decade ago. It's that high grade that gives Donlin very low cost of production and hence tremendous margins. You know, and exploration is a key aspect of Donlin. You know, our 40 million ounces are located on three kilometers of an eight-kilometer gold-bearing system.
You know, we've had drill results all up and down this trend. We know the ore body is open-ended at depth, and as you saw from our recent drill results, every time we drill, and we've been drilling in some of the underexplored areas in and around the deposit and encountering significant grades. As we go to update our resource model, we anticipate converting some of the waste areas into ore and some of the inferred resources into indicated.
When the time is right, we'll resume a serious exploration program here. And this just highlights, you know, the top intervals from this program. When you think about, you know, we have a two and a quarter gram ore body, and you look at some of these intervals that approach three quarters of an ounce per ton, it really speaks to the exciting untapped potential at Donlin.
We've released about half the assays from this program, and we'll be releasing the balance of them probably in about a month or so. You know, location is really important. You know, Alaska is, Tony and other presenters have highlighted, is a great place to be doing business. They've got a well-established permitting framework. It's the second largest gold-producing state in the U.S., and they appreciate the importance of a healthy natural resource industry.
One of the developments up in Alaska that we're following with great interest is the plan that the governor and the federal government are advancing to bring gas from the North Slope down into the Cook Inlet, which would be potentially very significant for the Donlin project. You know, working in Alaska, one of the important aspects of Alaska is the Native Claims Settlement Act, which transferred federal and state land to the Alaska Native corporations for their own economic self-determination. The Donlin project is on private land owned by two Alaska Native corporations.
Calista owns the mineral rights, and TKC owns the surface rights. They've been great advocates for the project, and they have an owner's interest in seeing it go forward. These Native corporations essentially have a treaty with the federal government that allows mining activities to take place on the land around Donlin.
You know, permitting, I'll just touch on this lightly. We've completed the federal permitting process, and we are wrapping up the state permits. You know, the only remaining state permit of any consequence is the tailings dam permit, and we anticipate having that in hand well in advance of completing the feasibility study. Litigation is, you know, it's just part of the permitting process in the United States.
You get your permits, and then you spend a few years defending your permits. You know, we are well advanced in the litigation. Three cases in the state court have worked their way to the Alaska Supreme Court, and we anticipate rulings in the coming years. There is one piece of federal litigation, and we have prevailed every step of the way as that has advanced through the court.
So we're. It's an unfortunate aspect of permitting, but we've been through it before, and it's. We expect to prevail. You know, some of the highlights from our ESG report. You know, we've got about three minutes left, so I'll let you peruse this slide at your leisure. But ESG and proper governance is. We take that to heart at NovaGold.
You know, Donlin is really an institutional-grade gold investment vehicle. You look at the market cap when we announced, just before we announced our transaction with taking Donlin off of Barrick, we were about $2 a share. We're just under $7 a share. So the markets have really responded well to this transaction. They now see a very clear path forward to the project. Paulson, who is now our partner in Donlin, has been a long-term stalwart shareholder for the company.
And it's great to have their continued involvement. You know, our cash balance is down now because we concluded the transaction from Barrick, but we have sufficient liquidity to advance the project through the feasibility study and ultimately to a construction decision. Yes, this has really been an amazing transaction for us. You know, for many years, we presented at this conference, and everybody would always say, "Geez, that's a great project, great location. Where's Barrick?" Well, that question is irrelevant now.
We now have a partner that shares our vision to take this project forward. And that's exactly what is happening now. We've recently put a request for proposals out to some of the major engineering firms that have the capacity to do the feasibility study and take this project all the way through construction. You know, we are, we will have those bids back in the next coming months, and we anticipate awarding the work to update the feasibility study by the end of the year. Thank you. I think I have about a minute left. Got definitely a question or two for Greg.
Oh, Greg, maybe I'll ask a question. You could be a one and a half million ounce producer in this environment. The cash flow would be tremendous. So I guess wonder when you think maybe you can get to a construction decision. I know we have some permits to get through, but it just, market cap would be huge.
You know, where we see the project going now is, you know, we'll initiate the feasibility study late this year, and we expect that will take somewhere between 18 months and two years, at which time we will be in a position to sanction the project and go forward. But to be clear, you know, we have a 404 permit in hand, so we can actually begin work at site concurrently with the feasibility study. And given the price environment, that's something that the owners are contemplating. All right. Thank you, Mike.
Thank you, Greg. And NovaGold, great presentation.