Thank you everyone for joining. With us today is Jon Cherry, CEO of Perpetua, Laurel Sayer, Senior Advisor to the CEO, and Jessica Largent, CFO. I am particularly excited to introduce Jon as our new CEO as we look ahead at the next phase of growth for Perpetua. Laurel announced her retirement in connection with our succession plan, and we're lucky to have her for another year to ensure a seamless transition. In terms of logistics for the webinar today, Jon will lead us through a presentation for about 20 minutes or so, and then we'll have the other panelists join us again for Q&A at the end. Please feel free to submit any questions that you have as we move along today using the Q&A function. Then before turning to Jon, I'd like to hand it over to Laurel to say a few words.
Over to you, Laurel.
Thank you, Chris. I came to Perpetua Resources with the specific goal of securing a Record of Decision for the Stibnite Gold Project. Over the last seven years, we have shown that we can restore an abandoned mine site. We have shown that, and demonstrated that we are a responsible partner for our communities, and that we can provide for our nation. I am immensely proud of this work and the team that's helped bring us this far. Our Record of Decision is now within reach, and it's time to welcome our next leader, who will take Perpetua into our next phase of development. I'm thrilled to welcome Jon, whose proven experience is, will help guide the construction readiness, the financing, and the development process.
I'm going to continue and will remain focused on my goal of achieving a Record of Decision and working hand in hand with Jon to ensure that the vision, the culture, and the commitments Perpetua has made are carried through. I want to just take a second to thank the entire Perpetua team, our shareholders, and our community members for their support and hard work. Now I'll turn it over to you, Jon.
Thanks, Laurel, and welcome everyone, and thank you for your attendance today. So I joined Perpetua because of the quality that the Stibnite Gold Project and the people behind it, the great foundation that the company has built already. Perpetua's done an outstanding job of building trust with its partners and its communities, that not only sets the company apart in a crowded field, but it also gives Stibnite Gold Project strength and momentum. I believe in Perpetua's vision to develop one of the highest grade open-pit gold mines in the U.S. and provide the country with the critical mineral of antimony, which is important for national defense and clean energy transition, and restore an abandoned brownfield mine site, to a more productive environment, by building the project, and then reclaiming it when we're done.
My background is in permitting, financing, and building mines. I've been doing that in the U.S. for the last 34 years, and very confident in the path forward for this project. It's in a really good position to succeed here. Just for good governance, you'll see our cautionary language on slides two and three. Then on slide four, we'll start with Why Perpetua. Our investment thesis is stronger than ever. We plan to develop one of the largest low-cost and long-life gold projects in the U.S. I've studied and looked at the mine plan in depth before joining the company about a month ago, and it looks really good to me. It's the lowest cost, long-life gold project in the U.S.
It has excellent economics, including a 15-year reserve life and a payback period of less than three years based on our 2020 feasibility study. We also have the critical mineral and byproduct in antimony, positioning the Stibnite Gold Project as an emerging national strategic asset and the only antimony production in the U.S. Finally, we're also located in one of the best mining jurisdictions in the world, and there's strong community support for the project.
So our mission at Stibnite Gold Project, and what I think is so unique about this project, is the plan to take an area abandoned after 100 years of mining activity and use a sustainable approach to restore the environment and develop a modern mining project to today's standards that will result in an overall net benefit to the environment for the project. So our competitive advantage. We own 100% of the Stibnite Gold Project in central Idaho. It's unique for a number of reasons. However, there's three distinct competitive advantages that we have. First, our favorable all-in sustaining cost profile positions our project in the lowest quartile of the global cost curve.
And second, our mine plan, which was identified as the preferred alternative in the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement, is expected to deliver net environmental benefits based on the comprehensive scientific analysis that went into the study. And finally, we have the only domestic reserve of antimony in the country. So our world-class gold asset underpins and drives the economics of the project, making the site restoration and antimony production possible. So let's touch on our leadership here for a second. So we have a great team committed to our vision and who have spent years earning the trust of our communities and stakeholders, and has built a solid foundation, and we're adding complementary skill sets as we advance to the next step of the project for the company.
We've added more experience behind our permitting strengths, we've enhanced our construction and readiness and engineering teams, and we've deepened our bench of experienced, mine financiers and developers. Our competitive advantage includes our people, and I'm incredibly proud to be able to lead this team going forward here. Let's talk about gold reserves for a minute. So, with 4.8 million oz of reserves, our project has one of the largest gold reserves in the United States not owned by a major producer.... In total, we have 6 million oz of measured and indicated resources, with an additional 1.2 million ounces of inferred resource. Not shown on this slide are the 148 million lbs of antimony reserves, which sets our project apart from other gold peers, developers and producers.
Not only is this one of the largest gold reserves in the U.S., but it is the solid gold asset that unlocks our ability to provide restoration and insulates the antimony by-product from foreign price manipulation. Our grade, we have one of the highest average gold grade open pit mines that's out there with approximately 2.2 grams per ton in the first four years of production and 1.4 grams per ton over the 15-year mine life. Our production will average 300,000 oz per year over the life of the mine, and will average about 460,000 oz per year in the first four years of operations, which would make it the largest producing mine in the U.S. outside of the Nevada Gold Mines Joint Venture.
Our costs, Stibnite will be powered by one of the lowest carbon emission grids in the nation. Our costs are expected to be in the lowest quartile of the global cost curve, driven by a clean, low-cost hydropower, a low strip ratio, and an antimony by-product credit of over $70 per ounce. Life of mine, all-in sustaining costs will average less than $650 per ounce, and in the first four years, the all-in sustaining costs will be less than $450 per ounce. The gold leverage to NPV, our production profile, low cost and robust cash flow, combined with our current valuation, present a very compelling opportunity for new investors.
Using our base $1,600 per ounce gold price, the project has an NPV of greater than $1.3 billion using a 5% discount rate. We have good leverage to higher gold prices, where the NPV increases to approximately $2.4 billion at a $2,100 gold price. Based on our current market cap, we're trading at nearly the widest discount to NAV, despite achieving significant milestones and having a clear path forward. There's one of the key parts about the project that is also very important to me. It's restoring a brownfield site, and restoring a brownfield site is also one of the key pillars of Perpetua's vision.
As an environmental engineer by training, I understand the complexities of developing an asset like we have, while also protecting and restoring the environment. The Stibnite Gold Project can provide a net environmental benefit to an area in desperate need of a modern mining solution. Our project's restoration and mitigation plans provide early action for water quality and legacy cleanup, as well as concurrent restoration and reclamation for any new disturbances. Our design will ultimately improve water quality, restore fish passage that has been blocked for decades, and clean up legacy tailings and waste sites across the property. The project offers a win-win-win. We improve the environment, produce a mineral of national strategic importance, and we provide economic value to our community and our shareholders.
So another thing I'm pretty excited about is this, this would also be establishing a national strategic asset. Antimony is listed as one of the 50 critical minerals, given the U.S. has no primary production, and China and Russia dominate the world's supply. The U.S., Canada, the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia all list antimony as a critical mineral. Historically, antimony has been used as a flame retardant and has properties for strengthening alloys and making them resistant to corrosion. Currently, antimony is being used in bearings for wind and hydro turbines, tinting in solar panels and semiconductors. Excuse me. And it's also important for munitions, our military needs, and can be found in low-cost liquid metal batteries. So we're actually expected to average about 35% of the U.S. demand for antimony when we get into production.
Our project alone could supply about 35% of that annual demand for the over the first six years of production. We plan to produce an antimony concentrate at scale, and we are also evaluating opportunities to produce military-grade antimony trisulfide. We're confident in our ability to meet the military specs, because historically, our site supplied the War Department with 90% of antimony demand and helped define the current specifications for multiple munitions products. Perpetua Resources is ready to be part of the solution to secure critical mineral supply chain that is essential to both our national and economic security. Another thing that's really encouraging about where we're at right now is the whole-of-government approach.
A whole-of-government approach is being applied to secure American antimony, reduce reliance on China, and promote American jobs. From millions of dollars awarded by the Department of Defense to a potential $1.8 billion financing through EXIM, the government's using all the available tools to bring antimony home. Making public policy often develops slowly, but we're excited to see momentum building around our vision, and it's clear that Washington's interest in securing critical mineral supply chains, specifically antimony, is growing. In 2021, the executive order on critical supply chains signaled the need to evaluate supply chains for critical minerals, semiconductors, and battery storage technology.
Then in 2022, the National Defense Authorization Act noted concern that allied nations control the U.S. supply of antimony and calls for reporting on the national stockpile of antimony. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and the pressure on America's ammunition supply chain further increased interest in securing domestic supply of antimony. In 2022, the Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Bill passed, unlocking funding to support permitting and construction readiness activities for our project. Now we're seeing a whole government approach with the U.S. Export-Import Bank indicating through a letter of interest the potential to finance up to $1.8 billion for the Stibnite Gold Project through EXIM's Make More in America and China and Transformational Exports Program initiatives.
All this is possible because of the rigorous process mandated by NEPA, and we're well over seven years into that process, and now we're closer than ever to achieving Perpetua's vision. What are the permitting next steps? A significant milestone was reached when the supplemental draft EIS was released to the public for comment in October of 2022. Importantly, our proposed mine plan was identified as the preferred alternative, which is a term used by the agencies to let the public know which action they are leaning towards selecting as final.
Now that the public comment period is over, the U.S. Forest Service is focused on wrapping up the final EIS and the draft record of decision, which we still anticipate by the end of the second quarter, this quarter, Q2 in 2024, and a final ROD is anticipated by the end of the year. So with final stage of permitting ahead and various pathways to financing the project, we expect a construction decision as early as next year. We're also expecting a valuation re-rate. Perpetua continues to be significantly undervalued relative to our peer group. Permitted projects trade at a premium in our industry, and we expect our valuation to improve as we continue through this process, so there is an opportunity today for new investors.
Perpetua offers excellent exposure to rising gold prices, and with 73 oz of gold reserves per 1,000 Perpetua shares, we are currently a leader in reserves per share. So finally, look, this is a very unique American opportunity. Perpetua Resources is unique because we bring solutions. We have a large, low-cost, high-grade, open-pit gold mine. We'll offer the only domestically mined source of the critical mineral antimony, and we'll use the mine development to fund restoration of an abandoned mine site that results in net environmental improvement. And just in conclusion, as I looked at joining this project, I've been here about a month now, I came here thinking this project was really gonna be a home run.
After I've been here and kind of kicked the tires and got into a little bit more details, I actually think instead of a home run, this is actually gonna be a grand slam. So I'm very excited to be here, and the project's off and running, building on a great foundation, and I, like I said, I couldn't be more excited to be here. So, with that, Chris, I'll turn it back over to you to maybe moderate our Q&A session.
Thanks, Jon. As a reminder to our audience, if you do have any questions, please feel free to submit those, using the Q&A function, at either the bottom or the top of your screen there. The first question here is just about circling back to the permitting timeline again. So maybe this is a good question for you, Jon. When do you expect to have all final permits for the project, so construction can begin? So maybe you could just reiterate the NEPA permitting timeline you mentioned earlier, and then when we expect to have all the ancillary permits wrapped up.
Sure. So the NEPA process should conclude by the end of the year with the issuance of the final Record of Decision. And then there's ancillary permits that'll be completed in early 2025 that will put us in a position to make a construction decision and move forward from there.
Perfect.
Then obviously, as we do that, you know, we expect to re-rate, as we hit these milestones and continue to show progress.
Thanks, Jon. Question number two here is about project financing, and reads: How do you expect to finance the project? So Jon touched on this, but Jess, maybe you could get into a little more details on how we're thinking about that.
Sure thing, and hi, everyone. Thanks for joining. Really, the good news for our project is that we have many options, and we plan to pursue the best deal for our shareholders, and we are going to be laser focused on putting together the most value accretive and non-dilutive options possible. Our first priority is going to be pursuing the EXIM financing that Jon mentioned earlier. Just last week, we announced an indication on the debt side from U.S. EXIM, and to provide a little bit of context on that EXIM financing, the letter of interest was for up to $1.8 billion debt financing with an up to 15-year repayment tenor under the Make More in America initiative and the China and Transformational Exports Program. Just for a little more background on those, Make More in America was designed to strengthen U.S. exports and American jobs.
So Perpetua qualifies for Make More in America's requirement to export products, in our case, gold, and then create American jobs. So on average, over the 15-year life, we're going to create 550-650 jobs, and those jobs we will create when developing and operating the Stibnite Gold Project support the up to $1.8 billion number based on the program's funding formula. We also received notice that we could be eligible under CTEP, which was designed to help equal the playing field for American production and manufacturing to be more competitive with China.
So CTEP applicants must have direct China competition, and about 50% of the global supply of antimony is dominated by China, or be part of 10 transformational export areas, and antimony is actually used in semiconductors and clean energy, which are both part of those transformational export areas. What's most exciting is that under that CTEP program, they are able to be more flexible and offer benefits beyond the Make More in America initiative, including reduced fees, extended repayment tenors, and other exceptions. So later this year, we plan to submit our formal application under this program, and CTEP can provide up to 85% of debt funding for project capital costs, which really opens up multiple pathways for our full financing package.
Then for the remainder of the funding, we have numerous options, and we're keeping the doors open on all of them so we can pull together the best package for our shareholders. So if we look at some of those tools in our tool belt, we have, obviously, as our stock continues to rerate, as we advance through permitting, we could look at raising a portion through equity if it was accretive to our shareholders. We also expect there to be increasing interest from the mining industry in general, as we continue to de-risk the project, and it could make sense to bring on a partner at the right time and right price. There's other potential funding sources, like royalties, offtake agreements, and other things like that. But again, we're very unique in that we have multiple options, and the whole of government approach is really supporting our path there.
Great. Thank you, Jess. The next question we have here is about the share price performance recently, and specifically, do you think there's additional upside in the share price, from here, given the recent run up? Perhaps a question for Jon or Jess, or Laurel as well.
Yeah. I'll take a stab at it, and then I hand it over to Jess here. But yeah, absolutely, there's upside to the share price. We expect that as we continue to hit these milestones and make progress on the permitting and go through the EXIM process, that we'll continue to rerate. And the share price, as you saw from some of the slides here, there's a lot of potential upside on that. So I don't know, Jess, you wanna provide more detail or color on that?
No, I think, I think you hit it. We showed the slides, the upside that's there just from a pure what does the net asset value look like of our project? But again, we think we've got a competitive advantage, and there's a number of things, whether it's the solid gold asset, the antimony byproduct credit, and the restoration, that should actually have us at a premium to some of our peers.
Great. Thank you both. Next question here is about the upcoming election this year, so probably a good one for you, Laurel, and this one reads: What impact do you expect the election will have on the permitting timeline, if any?
Well, right now, I don't anticipate an impact on the timing for the draft ROD, given that it is. We are very confident that it's probably will hit the time that's on the schedule of Q2 2024. We don't see any reason also that a final ROD isn't possible by the end of 2024. We've seen a lot of bipartisan support for the domestic critical mineral production. We feel that our project is well positioned in any administration, and we anticipate it moving forward through the timeline that the Forest Service has indicated. So right now, we anticipate end of June being a good week.
Excellent. Thanks, Laurel. One question here for you, Jon. What got you so excited about the project, and why'd you join? You touched on this again, but if you could just remind folks.
Sure. Look, I was semi-retired and actually had been approached and looking at a couple of different opportunities. As I looked at Perpetua and kind of got into more of the details, dove into the feasibility study and just kind of looked at what was going on, I got more and more excited about it. Basically, it's a great project with great economics, and, and the gold obviously drives the economics for this project.
And again, with my background as an environmental engineer, the mine plan and design, where you can design a mine, conduct your business, and then clean up historic brownfield and legacy issues as part of your mine plan and incorporate it into your mine plan, you know, told me that this is a company that's, you know, doing things right, going in the right direction. But to be honest with you, it's really the antimony angle on this. The fact that this project will have antimony as a byproduct, it will be the only antimony producer in the U.S., and very importantly, the ongoing support from the Department of Defense, putting you know, multi-millions of dollars into this project for engineering and permitting and evaluation of creating that antimony product.
That told me that, you know, that this is a really important project for the U.S., and it really kind of demonstrated that whole government approach. And then, you know, knowing that, you know, the EXIM was kind of in the works a little bit. It just really got me excited about it, that this is a really good project that's kind of on the doorstep for big success here.
Great. Thanks, Jon. Excuse me. We've had a number of questions here about, capital costs for the projects and, and inflation-related questions, so I'll try to group those together. This one, this one might be a good one for you, Jess. So could you, could you talk through, you know, what, what goes into what are some of the things that are included in our, in our capital costs from our 2020 Feasibility Study? Are we planning to update that, and what does the timing look like on that? And just any general, inflation trends that we're, that we're seeing.
Sure. So the 2020 feasibility study, you know, the good news with the timeline we've been under is that we've had plenty of time to study this project and do the engineering, and we're quite confident in the feasibility study itself in terms of the mine plan laid out, and how and what we're getting permitted. It was a 2020 number, and the 2020 number was $1.3 billion of capital. That included a decent contingency, but we all know we're not in 2020 times anymore. That said, for all the reasons Jon talked to earlier, our low-cost project, we believe on the operating cost side, we've got some insulation, right? So the driver of our low cost is access to hydropower, clean, low-cost hydropower, low strip ratio.
Again, this is an abandoned brownfield site, and we will be able to access the ore very early. And then the antimony byproduct credit. So just to touch on that. First, in our feasibility study, we assumed $3.50 per pound antimony prices. They've been trading in the $5-$6 per pound range now for well over a year, given global supply and demand fundamentals around antimony. So lots of upside on the antimony byproduct credit from where we were in that study from an operating cost perspective. Now, if you step back and look at the capital, in that $1.3 billion, about half, $500 million is the autoclave, so that's a big chunk of it, in terms of the driver of why the number is what it is.
But even if you, our project's so great from an economics perspective, that even if you assume a 10% change in CapEx or a 20% change, you can run your numbers there. It's about a $100 million decrease in NPV. But again, we ran our base model at $1,600 gold prices, and we're encroaching on $2,400 gold prices today. So, we know it's not 1.3, but we also know the project can sustain movements in the capital. And so in terms of what we're doing, part of the work this year is we're advancing basic engineering as we get ready for that construction decision next year and running a you know financial model update. So that's work we're progressing through 2024. But again, the project's been well studied.
We're confident in the plan, so we have no plans on updating our feasibility study or technical report, but we will look at financial model updates to support project financing. Hopefully, I captured all those questions, Chris?
I think you got it. Yes, thank you.
Okay.
This next one here, and I think it looks like we've captured all of them, and they're starting to slow down a little bit from coming in, so I think we can wrap on this next question here, which is, again, sort of a two-parter. So do you see any potential risk with the EXIM potential financing that Perpetua is incorporated in Canada? And then what is the expected timeline to secure that loan, and what additional funds will be required prior to securing this loan?
I mean, I'll take a stab at the first part of that, which is, like, the project is based in the U.S., it creates U.S. jobs, and EXIM's formula is based on the creation of jobs in the United States. So I don't really see much of a risk from the fact that it might be incorporated in Canada. All of the work, the project, the resource, and the jobs are all gonna be here in the U.S., which is kind of what this EXIM program is designed for. So I don't know. Jess, do you wanna tackle the other half of that there?
The debt will be at the Perpetua Resources Idaho level. The application is for the company that's headquartered in Idaho.
And then timeline?
Oh, yes. So again, we're gonna progress that work this year and work with EXIM to determine the right time in which to, apply and submit our formal application. But we expect that this year, later this year, to kick off a 12-month expected due diligence process. So very excited and work's ongoing as we speak to prepare and get ready for that application.
Excellent. Thank you, Jess. Well, with that, I think we will, we will wrap here, close our webinar. Thank you again for joining. As a reminder, please make sure that you are signed up on our website for our newsletters, to make sure you're getting all, all of our updates, because, again, we have, we have many more exciting updates to come this year. Visit our website if you haven't, if you'd like to learn more, perpetuaresources.com. My contact information is also on there as well. Again, I lead investor relations and happy to chat anytime if you have questions. So thank you for joining us today, and have a good rest of your Wednesday. Thank you.