Ladies and gentlemen, my pleasure in welcoming Mr. Greg Lang, who's President and CEO of NovaGold. More of a traditional corporate presentation rather than the Q&A we had in the last session. Greg, please.
Thank you. And thanks everyone for taking a few minutes to get an update on NovaGold. NovaGold is really focused on one thing, and that's advancing the Donlin Gold project up in Alaska. And as I'm sure everybody would know, our presentation does contain some forward-looking materials. So why would you think about NovaGold now, aside from the obvious fact that gold is near record prices? NovaGold, we own 60% of the Donlin asset up in Alaska. This will be a big mine when it's built, over a million ounces a year for a mine life of almost 30 years. Permitting is essentially done. The federal permitting is in hand, and we're wrapping up the remaining state permits. Donlin has got great grade at 2.25 g, sort of the highest grade open pit deposits in the industry. About 2x the industry average.
We're located up in Alaska, a great mining jurisdiction, and a jurisdiction that appreciates responsible mining. Jurisdictional risk is one of the key issues facing the industry today, and being up in Alaska, we don't have that fear. Donlin's also got tremendous remaining exploration potential. It's a great asset in a great location, and the timeline to production is solely in the hands of the owners. It's interesting to look at where NovaGold is today. A year ago, we were about a $2 stock, $2.50, and we were partnered with Barrick. About this time a year ago, we announced a transaction that really transformed NovaGold. We teamed up with the Paulson Company and paid $1 billion to buy Barrick's interest in Donlin.
With this transaction, Paulson put in $800 million, and we put in $200 million, and this increased our stake in Donlin from 50%-60%, really giving us control of the asset. When you look at where we are today, where we were a year ago, and it's really gratifying to see the market response to this transaction. When you understand where NovaGold is today, it's helpful to look back a few years. For many years, we were one of the better-performing stocks in the GDXJ, as shown on this illustration. What happened? Our partner, Barrick at the time, shifted their focus. They went from gold to copper in a copper project in Reko Diq, and that put Donlin on the back burner. Our share price just slowly decayed.
Since the transaction has been announced and we now have a defined path forward and a partner who shares our vision, our stock price has regained its outperformance in the GDXJ. I'll only touch on gold a little bit today because I think most people who would be at this conference have a generally constructive view on where gold price is going. The world, as we all know, is a very unsettled place right now, and I think that alone will continue to push gold prices higher. On the supply side, there are pressures there. Grades are declining, production has peaked, and the central banks continue to buy. This is just a look at a bull market and what it really might look like. This is the Dow Jones over a 50-year timeline. If you go back, and many of us are.
I'm certainly old enough to remember the crash of 1987 and the impact that had. It is hardly noticeable now, and that's what the gold price is doing. I think we've had a little bit of a pullback, but we've recovered some of the losses, and I think the secular upward trend will continue in the coming years. The other interesting thing that NovaGold really brings to our shareholders in the Donlin project is leverage. These numbers look at the returns that NovaGold's Donlin project will generate at a variety of gold prices. We're sitting here today at over $4,500 an ounce, and it's an NPV of almost $24 billion for the project. We own 60% of that. It's got good returns, even at gold prices as low as $2,500 an ounce.
It's a tremendous asset, and it brings us leverage in a place we know we can keep the fruits of that leverage. I mentioned earlier, Donlin's a big mine. Over a million ounces a year through its life. First 10 years, 1.3 million ounces. At today's prices, the margin that Donlin will enjoy is approaching $4,000 an ounce. You think about that and the cash flow this mine will generate, the payback, even with a significant investment, will come quickly. Grade is important in a mining asset. You look at Donlin at 2.25 g open-pit. It's great grade for an open-pit mine, and it gives the project low life-of-mine cash costs, about $900 an ounce for the life of mine, lower in the first 10 years when the grade is a little bit higher. Grade is key, and Donlin enjoys that.
There are a lot of mines built in recent years with grades about 1 g . It's Donlin Gold's high grade that gives it a low-cost profile. The other really interesting and very exciting part about the Donlin asset is we've got over 40 million ounces in and around the ACMA and Lewis ore bodies. That represents less than 3 km of an 8 km gold-bearing system. We've got gold-bearing drill holes all up and down the strike length of this mineralized trend, and we know from some deep drilling that the project is open-ended at depth and along strike. When the time is right, we will resume exploration drilling at the site. The other aspect that's important here is this illustration, where the mineralized belt is. It's about 5% of our total land holdings, which are all substantially unexplored. Permitting is often something people worry about as events beyond your control.
Well, we've completed our permitting. We wrapped up the federal permitting process a few years ago. We had a joint Record of Decision issued by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Land Management. It was really the first time two federal agencies approved together a mining project. I think that speaks really to the very collaborative way which we approach the permitting. The state permitting, you see a tabulation of the permits we have in hand. The only remaining permit is for the tailings dam and other water retention structures. We've submitted design packages to the state of Alaska, and they're very quick to turn these things around. Alaska is a jurisdiction that really appreciates mining. This is just to that earlier comment about Alaska appreciates mining.
We were up with our new owners, which was John Paulson and his team last summer, met with the Governor, and he put out really one of his posts on this, and he is absolutely supportive of the mine. We started permitting under a different administration. We completed it under another different administration, and we've always stayed non-political. Everybody asks me often, "Does the current changes in Washington help you?" I said, "No. We didn't need anybody's help. We got this permitted under a Democratic administration." I think part of what was very key to our successful permitting is we're on private land that's owned by two Alaska Native Corporations, and we've got life of mine agreements with them in place, and they've really got an owner's interest in seeing this project go forward.
We've involved them in every step of the way through the permitting, and I think that was really one of the keys to the successful outcome that we enjoyed. This is a little bit more about the Native Corporations. Calista owns the underlying mineral rights, and TKC owns the surface rights. We've worked with them very steadily through the permitting. Right now, we're working with them on programs to prepare residents in this part of Alaska for employment at the mine so that as construction gets underway in a year or so, they'll be able to seek employment. Donlin is located in a very impoverished part of Alaska. In fact, it's one of the poorest parts of the entire country. They've really got no other economic engine on the horizon like Donlin. They really want this mine, and they really need this mine for their economic self-determination.
The management team has been down this road before. Richard Williams, who is our Chief Operating Officer, years ago, I worked with Richard at Barrick. Richard was the Project Director for the Pueblo Viejo mine in the Dominican Republic. That mine has many similarities to the Donlin, and at the time it was the largest capital ever put into a single gold mine of about $4 billion. He's a person that's built big gold mines. In fact, he was responsible for many of the construction activities in Barrick over his 30-year tenure. We've got the people that know how to get these things done. Frank Arcese is our Project Director. He brings decades of experience with large projects all over the world, including projects in far-flung remote places like the Arctic, where we plan to be. Some of the highlights from our first quarter.
We never stop our community engagement and government affairs activities. These are important relationships. We don't take them for granted. We stay in touch with the Alaska Senators, Murkowski and Sullivan. We're routinely in contact with the Governor's Office. They've always stated, "Whatever help this mine needs, we want to see it happen." We continue to work with them on any issues that come up, and we continue to work with Calista and TKC, both getting out in their communities, helping prepare people for the mines, and addressing any concerns that might come out of some of the community meetings. We're very active in that. It's one of the key activities up in Alaska for us right now. Earlier this year, we announced that we hired Fluor to prepare the bankable feasibility study. Fluor was actually the lead firm on the Pueblo Viejo project.
We know them well. When we selected a firm, we wanted somebody that could not only do the feasibility study, but had the depth and experience to take the project all the way through construction and ultimately into commissioning. We've also engaged specialist contractors under the Fluor umbrella. Donlin is a big, complex project. We've engaged Hatch, who's an industry leader in autoclave technology, and they will do the pressure oxidation and the oxygen plant for us. Worley operates up in Alaska, and their specialty is transporting hydrocarbons. WSP build many power plants. These are all under the Fluor umbrella. These are all industry-leading companies that have the capacity to do what we're doing and experience in cold environments. Also in the first quarter, we were following an interesting development. Glenfarne is seeking financing to build a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope into the Cook Inlet.
This could be very important to Donlin for two reasons. One, Donlin, we envisioned importing gas into the Cook Inlet and putting it in a pipeline to the mine site. We've signed a non-binding letter of intent with Glenfarne. They would like to supply gas to the site and also build and operate our gas pipeline, which suits us very well. That would take a big piece of the infrastructure off of our capital requirements and put it onto a third party, and we would have an offtake agreement with them. The permitting for the gas pipeline was completed with the permitting for the project. The next steps, we'll just continue to advance our discussions with Glenfarne. I think given the current environment and the energy markets, now is as good a chance as ever that gas pipeline can become a reality.
This is really some of the milestones coming up. Right now, our main focus is a bankable feasibility study by Fluor, and that will define our project capital needs going forward. In the next couple of weeks, we'll be announcing that we've appointed a financial advisor, just so that they can prepare to help us raise the money we need to build this mine. I think in the current gold price environment, and a mine in a safe jurisdiction, raising the capital for this will come very easily. NovaGold, we're in great financial shape. We've got a treasury of just under $400 million. We anticipate spending about $100 million of that to retire the Barrick promissory note. This note had a face value of about $165 million when we negotiated the purchase price that got Barrick out of Donlin.
We also negotiated paying this note out in 18 months at a significant discount, so about $100 million. This was a promissory note that was payable out of cash flow from the mine. It made sense for us to do that, and we intend to pay that off before the year is done. No sense paying it off early because it's not interest-bearing at this stage. It's a flat $100 million. We'll be doing that later in the year. Clearly, you look at our expenditures this year and what we anticipate spending at Donlin, we will have more than a sufficient treasury to see this through completion of the feasibility study, arranging financing, and ultimately to a construction decision. NovaGold is really an institutional-quality gold stock.
Many of our top shareholders have been with us for years and have stood by us through thick and thin and low gold prices, disenchanted partner, and so on. It's really great to see their patience rewarded, and a lot of them have added to their positions in the company in the last couple of years. It's interesting to note one of our largest shareholders is Paulson Advisers, and that's John Paulson's family office, and they've been shareholders in the company over 15 years. Now we jointly own the asset with them. They've been great supporters every step of the way, and we're glad to have them. Capital Group is a London-based firm, and they've come in in a big position. Fidelity's been with us a long time. Lingotto is the Agnelli family office, and a great shareholder base.
It's really, I think, great to have long-term sticky money like we do backing the company. I think that really concludes my remarks. I think I've got a couple of minutes for questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Any questions from the floor, please? Ladies and gentlemen, any questions? Otherwise, I'll ask a quick one if I may. Obviously, a great project, a very large project.
Yes, yes.
Which will come with very large CapEx bills. You're in a comfortable position already having a majority ownership. Is one of the potential ways to help funders get another partner in, so you reduce your 60%? Secondly, I think like some major infrastructure, 316 mi of gas pipeline, 500 km, would you look to that off-balance-sheet, BOOT it, somebody else owns that?
Yeah, I think a couple of thoughts on that. We believe that when the feasibility study is done, Donlin will be a much greater value, as will NovaGold. I think we would not contemplate taking on a partner until we've got the feasibility study done. We've done enough work to know it's going to be a robust returns, particularly if you take a view of these prices. We don't rule out bringing on a partner, but just not right now. You mentioned the gas pipeline. That's an obvious piece of the infrastructure that we could move over to a third party and really take it out of the capital cost and put it into the operating cost, which I think given a lot of the people that we talk to about Donlin think, well, geez, that's a lot of money for a gold mine. It is.
Anything we can take off of our balance sheet and put it on someone else's, whether it's financing the mining equipment, oxygen plants, and so on, we will consider those when we're putting together the total package to finance the mine. I think putting it in perspective, a lot of people get a little leery of a multi-billion-dollar capital project in gold. Well, it's not common in gold, I accept that, but certainly, it's common in the copper industry. If you look at Donlin on a capital intensity per ounce of reserves or per ounce of production, it's really very simple. At 1.5 million ounces a year for the first few years, it's a big pie that we could divide if we ever thought so in the future.
For right now, we've got the people and the treasury to take this forward to completion of the feasibility study.
Great. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, sorry. A very quick question if we may please, from the floor.
I don't know if this has kind of already been asked, but if something goes wrong with the pipeline, with the right-of-way disputes and so on, is there a Plan B for power and logistics? What happens to the net present value with those higher costs?
Okay. Well, I think a couple of things to point out. The pipeline is permitted, and the right of way is approved. I think we're in fine shape there. There was a group that litigated the right of way, but that went to the Alaska Supreme Court, and the court ruled in our favor. The pipeline, as it's permitted, is ready to go. There is a Plan B, and that's originally we were going to just barge heavy fuel oil in and generate power with fuel oil. We still have that option. If for some reason we don't build the pipeline or the mine construction is before then, that has always been an option.
A lot of the power plants out there that we've built in the past are dual-fuel plants, both reciprocating engines that can operate on fuel oil, or you can convert them to gas. It certainly is a Plan B. With cash costs under $1,000 an ounce, you can absorb a little bit of extra operating cost by carving out some of the capital.
Always good to have low cash costs. I'm afraid we're out of time. If you could help me thank you to Mr. Greg Lang for a great presentation. Thank you.
Thank you.