Welcome. I'm Karl Eriksen. I will be the moderator for this event. This is a summit brought to you by Nordic Funds and Mines, Yukon Mining Alliance, and Arctic Minerals. For more information about our sponsors, please visit their respective booths just outside this room. It is high time to introduce our first speaker. That is Skeena Gold + Silver , developing and revitalizing past producing gold and silver mines in British Columbia. Here to tell us more about that is Galina Meleger, Vice President and IR. Please enter the stage. We give her an applause. The floor is yours.
Thank you so much. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the presentation. I will be making forward-looking statements, so you are duly cautioned. I'd like to start with a little bit about the history of our flagship asset called Eskay Creek. This is a past producing former underground operation that was owned and operated by Barrick Gold Corporation until 2008. It is an iconic and legendary asset. I say that because it has a phenomenal history. It was one of the highest, actually the highest grade open-pit, sorry, the highest grade gold mine in the entire world. The ore was so rich that they didn't even use a process plant. The average mine gold grade was 45 g per ton. The average mine silver grade was north of 2,000 g per ton.
What started the curiosity for Skeena was that the cut-off grade was 15 g per ton. We always have a saying in our company that the best place to find a new mine is in the shadows and head frames of an old mine. With a cut-off grade of 15 g per ton, we started really trying to understand what was there. We've been advancing Eskay Creek now for about 10 years with drilling, technical reports, and we are now in the construction phase with a project that's fully financed to production in 2027. However, we are reconceptualizing it. Formerly, it was an underground operation, and we will be mining it using open-pit methods. Some of the investment highlights include very, very large scale production. We're targeting 450,000 oz of gold-equivalent metal per year.
It's backed by a very robust grade profile of 5.5 g per ton equivalent, which is triple the global open-pit average. That type of grade results in very low operating costs at the bottom of the global cost curve. This will be a significant cash flow generator. At spot prices today, the after-tax annual free cash flow will be about CND 1.1 billion per year. There's a significant silver component. As I mentioned, the project is fully financed. Eskay Creek is located in the Golden Triangle in northwestern British Columbia. This area is known for immense geological potential, so it's absolutely no coincidence that Teck and Newmont have operating platforms established in the area. The other important thing to note about the Golden Triangle is that it's situated on Tahltan Nation territory. That's the Indigenous Nation with whom we're advancing the project.
Because there is so much mining activity in this one small area, the Tahltan Nation considers themselves to be a commercial, business-savvy mining nation. We have a very collaborative relationship with them with regards to advancing the development of Eskay Creek. The other important thing to note in the political landscape is that in February, we were put on the fast track list with the provincial government in response to the tariffs that were issued by the Trump administration. Our provincial government identified 18 projects that they would fast track to help offset the negative implications of the tariffs, and Eskay Creek was at the top of the list. We've been seeing that commitment as we advance the project through the permitting phase. At this moment, we are in the final stages of the environmental assessment application.
We expect to have our environmental assessment certificate in the fourth quarter of this year, which will be the next major catalyst for our share price and for our investors. As a brownfield asset, we have a significant amount of advantages with regards to fast tracking the development. Firstly, Barrick left behind a fully permitted tailings facility. It is saving us about CND 150 million off the CapEx, as well as the timeline associated with permitting a new tailings facility. Additionally, after Barrick placed it on care and maintenance, a private company came in and coincidentally installed three hydroelectric facilities 17 km away from the mine. These hydroelectric facilities allow us to source power for CND 0.06 per kW hour, which is a significant advantage for an open-pit mining operation.
To put that into perspective, there are other mines in Canada that are located in more remote locations that could be paying up to 10x that rate for power. It is also clean energy, so a strong sustainability initiative. We completed a definitive feasibility study in late 2023, and the economics for the projects were absolutely phenomenal. Here you can see at spot prices today, the NPV of the project is about CND 6.1 billion in after-tax NPV. That's Canadian. Our IRR is 86%, and our payback period is 0.6 years, or about 200 days, of running the project at full capacity to pay back the initial capital cost. On the other side of production, the financial metrics are equally astounding. At spot prices today, our EBITDA is about CND 1.8 billion , and our annual after-tax free cash flow is CND 1.1 billion.
Those metrics are for the first five years of production. To give you an idea in terms of how we as a company think about valuations, we take a multiple of six to the EBITDA, and we arrive at a market capitalization of about CND 10 billion. Our market cap today is CND 3 billion, so that's about a threefold increase in two years' time as we get into production and cash flow. If you apply a multiple of eight to the annual after-tax free cash flow, we also get back to that CND 10 billion market capitalization. The production profile is front-loaded, so we've sequenced the high-grade material at the start of the mine life. The grade and the ounces are elevated in years one through five. We have another asset in our portfolio called Snip. It is located 40 km away from Eskay Creek.
It is also an ex-Barrick asset, also high-grade, nine gram per ton material. The idea is after we get through the permitting process, which we expect to complete this quarter, we would update the mine plan by incorporating Snip into the later years, so we smooth out that dip in the grade and the ounces in year six onwards. As I mentioned at the start of the presentation, we are fully financed. Last summer, we put out a financial commitment of about CND 1 billion Canadian with a European group, Orion Resource Partners. That's against an initial CapEx of CND 765 million Canadian, so we are overfunded. The market really had a positive response to this financing package. The equity component was the smallest piece, so we were very cautious of minimizing dilution. We've only got 120 million shares outstanding. The Goldstream component for $200 million .
is funding the construction schedule in 2025. We just completed our last draw a couple of weeks ago, and we did a small raise. We closed it yesterday, actually, just as bridge financing from the Goldstream to the senior secured loan. We do need to have permits in place to draw down on the senior secured loan, so we have a little bit of flexibility with the raise that we did this week. With regards to the loan, we also have some flexibility there to potentially refinance it. The coupon on it is SOFR +7 .75%. There's a 1% standby fee and no break fee, meaning that if we find a lower cost of capital in the marketplace, we can essentially swap it out. We're looking at some potential options again as a Q1 catalyst after we get to the other side of permits.
This really just looks at what makes the asset so desirable. In the mining industry, we talk about grade as king. The reason is because it allows you to manage your business in a cyclical industry. Here you can see our positioning in the industry. We are really at the very top with some of the highest grade open-pit mines globally. Life of mine, we're in the top decile. That's triple the global open-pit average at 5.5 g per ton equivalent in years one through five. If you know the mining space, if you look at these lists of mines, you can see a number of mines operating at 1.5 or 1.6 g per ton that in this price environment are very profitable and doing very well. That puts it into perspective about what 5.5 g per ton would do to your profitability.
The reserve is also substantial, 4.6 million oz equivalent in reserves, 80% in the proven category for an ultra-high rate of confidence. The value split is 65% gold and 35% silver. Because of the scale, because of how big the production and reserves are at Eskay Creek, the 35% byproduct credit on the silver makes this one of the largest primary silver mines in the world. In years one through five, we're going to be doing 9.5 million oz of silver, life of mine 7.7 million oz. That's important to us because it's a very meaningful byproduct credit on our unit costs, and it also allows us to propel our re-ratings as the silvers can command higher trading multiples. The best way to think of it is that Eskay Creek is a world-class gold investment vehicle and a world-class silver investment vehicle.
This is probably my favorite part of the presentation because it really reinforces our valuation. We use a framework called the Lassonde curve as a single asset developer. This is a framework that really works, and we're just in the sweet spot of the Lassonde curve as we're starting to invite re-rate capital upon the receipt of the permits. We have two more years to climb this curve as we get closer and closer to cash flow. Every quarter, as we continue to make progress on the project and invest more capital to advance Eskay Creek, we will continue to climb up this curve. Our PNAV at spot prices is 0.5x . Ultimately, on a conservative level, with the world-class gold, with the world-class silver, we see a pathway to 1.3x NAV from a tier one jurisdiction.
It reinforces the view that that CND 10 billion market capitalization in two years' time is a very realistic valuation. I'll end on our shareholder profile. We're about 65% institutionally held with all of the mining dedicated funds in our industry. I have a position in Skeena. We also have a large generalist investor called Helicon, which is our top investor. We've got about 120 million shares outstanding if you include the financing that we just closed and 11 banks on the Canadian side that follow Skeena. Some of the targets that you'll see are CND 36, for example, by CIBC. The stock is trading today at CND 24 . That CND 36 target is contingent upon a re-rate subsequent to the receipt of final permits. Thank you.
Thank you. Let's see, we have a question down here.
You showed figures on years one to five. What is the life of mine and what happens after year five?
I was just going to advance that. Okay. I talk about the production profile in years one through five because the grade and the ounces are elevated. We have a plan in place to incorporate Snip into the production profile. It's an asset that's located 40 km away. The idea is we would truck the high-grade ore and process it at the Eskay Creek mill. Because we're in the permitting process right now, the applications to the government are based on the existing mine plan. Once we get to the other side of permitting, we can update our mine plan and incorporate Snip. We're also looking at steepening our pit walls to capture 500,000 oz and potentially incorporating an additional former tailings facility in the area that has six g per ton material.
Right now, the production profile looks like 450 years one through five and then maybe 375 years six to 12. When we incorporate those additional items, we can bring up the later years to 400. It smooths out that decline. We also have, and I didn't speak to it because there was no time, the deposit is polymetallic. There are critical minerals in the deposit: antimony, lead, and zinc. We're looking to monetize them. Very big estimate here, but when we incorporate those additional elements on an equivalent basis, that could actually take us up to over half a million ounces. We've got a lot of opportunities as we move this project forward, not only to climb the Lassonde curve, but also to increase the NPV.
It is a year six and seven coming up, I take it. Galina, thank you so much. Let's give her a round of applause.