Welcome everyone to the webinar to discuss the results of the 2025 preliminary economic assessment study for the Bornite project in the Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska. As a reminder, today, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and the meeting is being recorded. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity for analysts to ask their questions. If you wish to ask a question, please click the Q&A icon on the left-hand side of the screen. You will see the options, raise your hand to join the queue and ask your questions verbally, or write a question to submit your questions in writing. Analysts who have dialed into the conference call may press Star, then one on your telephone keypad to join the question queue. All other interested parties are welcome to submit their questions in writing through the webinar platform.
I would now like to turn the meeting over to Tony Giardini, President and CEO of Trilogy. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Before we begin, I'd like to state that we will be making forward-looking statements during the presentation. For complete discussion of the risks and assumptions which may affect actual results differing from estimates contained in our forward-looking information, please refer to page two of this presentation and our news release on the preliminary economic assessment for the Bornite project. Let me begin by saying that we are very excited to be speaking to you about the Bornite PEA results, which we released this morning. Before I turn the call over to our team that has been working on the PEA, I would like to provide you with a brief corporate update on Trilogy and discuss the rationale for releasing the PEA. Elaine, if you could just move the presentation to slide number six, please.
In 2011, we formed a partnership with the Alaska Native Corporation, NANA, combining for the first time the lands containing the Arctic project and the Bornite project. What we saw in the district was the ability to develop top-tier assets with significant potential for large, long life, low-cost mining operations. We completed an FS on Arctic in 2020, which we subsequently updated in 2023. Until today, we did not look at the economics of Bornite. Our thesis is that notwithstanding the exploration potential in the belt, which we believe is significant, and Richard will speak to that, we believe there's still a compelling option for processing Bornite material through the Arctic mill.
We're excited to be releasing the PEA and demonstrating that the production potential of establishing a multi-generational mining operation in the Ambler Mining District, extending the potential combined life to 30 years, 13 years outlined in the 2023 Arctic feasibility study, and 17 years at Bornite. Elaine, Richard, and Bob will provide further details, but in summary, the PEA assumes that the repurposing of a planned infrastructure for Arctic once the Arctic project deposit has been depleted. It assumes that total capital for the project is estimated to be $867 million or $948 million, including closure and reclamation costs.
The PEA is based on the mining of 2.6 billion pounds of copper in the high-grade South Reef area, which has a resource of 2.79% copper, which is expected to be amenable to underground mining. It's important to note that the total inferred resources at Bornite consist of 209 million tons, creating 1.42% copper containing over 6.5 billion pounds of copper. Let me now turn to the corporate update. This slide highlights the metals that are found in the Ambler Mining District. As you can see, we are focused on a district that contains several essential minerals that are on the U.S. Critical Minerals List. Next slide, Elaine. This is a map of Alaska showing where the district is located.
Richard will provide more information on the exploration potential in the district. The Red Dog mine, which is shown on the map, is owned by Teck and NANA and is located north of the UKMP. Red Dog is the world's largest zinc mine and a significant producer of germanium. Next slide, Elaine. This is a good summary of the Ambler Mining District and what we own together with South32. Ambler, Arctic on a standalone basis is a tier one asset with a low C1 cash costs and total costs and high grades with significant exploration potential. Bornite is also a high-grade deposit with an impressive inferred resource of 6.5 billion pounds of copper and an average grade of 1.42% and 88 million pounds of cobalt. Next slide, Elaine.
In 2020, we formed a joint venture with the large Australian diversified mining company, South32. In total, South32 has invested about $200 million in the Ambler Mining District and Trilogy. It's important to highlight that while South32 is our partner, the Bornite PEA study that we are discussing today was prepared by Trilogy Metals on a 100% ownership basis, of which Trilogy Metals' share is 50%. The Bornite PEA has not been reviewed by South32 or our JV Ambler Metals, but does comprise material that had been prepared for Ambler Metals previously. Next slide, Elaine. This slide provides an overview of the challenges that we have faced since 2021 when the original AAP permit had been granted in 2020, but the challenges began in 2021. That permit had been granted to AIDEA, the Alaska State Agency.
Looking forward, we are optimistic that there are a number of paths to get the road back on track. These include legislative, administrative, and legal options. We hope to have greater clarity as to the best path forward following the presidential inauguration and the confirmation of members of the cabinet. Next slide, Elaine. This slide highlights the impact of the uncertainty from the AAP road on our share price. We're hopeful that as the uncertainty is removed, we will exceed the highs of 2020 and 2021. Next slide, Elaine. I just wanna summarize. The Bornite PEA shows that we have a potential path to a 30-year mine life in the Ambler Mining District without any further exploration success at Arctic or Bornite within the VMS belt or on the rest of the NANA lands, which are very underexplored.
The economics do not consider the significant benefit of deferring closure costs at Arctic. From the Arctic feasibility study, we know that those closure costs total about $428 million. The study also assumes a production rate of 6,000 tons per day against nameplate capacity of 10,000 tons per day at the Arctic processing plant. We see lots of opportunity to fill the mill. In summary, we're very excited about this PEA study. I will now pass the call over to the team for more details, starting with Bob Jacko, who will review mining and processing.
Thanks, Tony. Next slide, Elaine. On this slide, we're highlighting the main engineering firms that we use for the PEA study. We're very fortunate we're able to utilize these firms because all the firms on this list have been involved in the PFS and the two FSs that Tony was referencing earlier. We're able to capture their skill and knowledge and take that into the Bornite PEA. Wood was the main lead on the study. They covered the underground mining costs and all the associated capital and operating costs. They also designed the surface infrastructure and the capital costs associated with that, the geology, the resource estimate, the financial model, and the final report consolidation. Ausenco, they did the process plant and the G&A, and the G&A of both Arctic and Bornite.
They also did the associated capital operating costs with that work. They also did the power costs and transportation costs that are associated with between Fairbanks and the mine site, along with the paste filters required for the paste plant. SRK did the hydrology and hydrogeology, the tailings, and also all the capital and operating costs associated with that. In addition to these three firms, we also used International Metallurgical and Environmental, and they were overseeing the met test work that was done previously with the Bornite material. They also oversaw the test work done for the Arctic metallurgical work. Core Geoscience also looked at the permitting and the environmental aspects of the report. Next slide. Here's some of the key engineering points of the study.
It is a 17-year mine life, and it could potentially be extended with additional exploration. Richard will cover some of that on the slides when he gets to that point in time. It is an underground mining method. It is sublevel long-hole mining method. It is 6,000 tons per day. It is, we will be backfilling. So the material that goes to Arctic mill after closure, 50% will go into the tailings facility and 50% will go back underground at Bornite. The processing plant will run at 10,000 tons per day. That is also the same nameplate capacity that we use for Arctic. In order to maintain that load, we're gonna run two weeks on and one week off.
The reason we've done that, it just minimizes the amount of work and upfront changes we have to make to the facility. It also reduces the number of manpower requirements on site at times when manpower are tough. Bornite is located close to Arctic, so we're only about 25 km away, which makes it very convenient being able to utilize and optimize the synergies between Arctic and Bornite after Arctic closes. We're able to use the shops, we're able to use the mill, the tailings facility, the camp, the powerhouse. There's a lot of synergies that help out in the overall design with the project. All the ore will be trucked over to Arctic. All the waste will be trucked to Arctic.
The paste that we need, the dry stack will be hauled back, mixed, and dumped underground for paste backfill. By staying at the 10,000-ton per day plant, the number of modifications we need to do in the mill are pretty minimal, and it just adds for the efficiency of the Bornite operation. Next slide. This is a surface plan. The top of the plan, you'll see an arrow that goes towards Arctic. The bottom of that is south, and it heads to the closest village, Kobuk. The tan color or brown color area that you see there, that's the South Reef Zone. It's a projection to surface, so you can see where it is in relation to the surface facilities.
The red box with the S in it is the old Kennecott shaft, and the green box with the P in it is the portal location for the South Reef. I'm guessing there's been a few people on this call that have probably been to site. If you look just right at the Kennecott shaft, you're gonna see a water treatment plant or pond, and you're also going to see ore stockpile there that gets hauled back to Bornite. When you're standing in the gray box, you're pretty much in the middle of the exploration camp. Then between those two locations in the green box, that is where our surface facilities are. We spent a lot of time and effort trying to minimize the footprint and take advantage of the Arctic facility.
All of the shop and warehouse is minimal from the point of view that we can do work at that location, but any major work, we would take it back to Arctic and utilize the full shop that they have over there. The water treatment plant is there, the warehouse is there, the dry is there, the office is there. We have a pretty compact, tight disturbance for the Bornite site, which helps us at the end from reclamation and closure perspective. Next slide. This is a section showing the South Reef. This is the red area that you're looking at is the 2% copper cutoff. This is all strictly South Reef. It is all sublevel long hole mining, and it is 6,000 tons per day.
Total tons for the life of mine is almost 37 million tons at 2.61% copper. We're using a cutoff grade of 1.6%. In order to optimize the throughput of tonnage out from underground, there are two declines from surface. One of them will be used for the conveyor that ties into three crushing stations and will be moving all the ore up through that access. The other one would be for people, materials, and waste rock heading to surface. The top of the ore body, the red that you see there is 300 m from surface, and the bottom is approximately 800 m from surface. We got about 500 m in vertical height for the South Reef. Next slide. This gives you some of the production figures.
Again, at the top you'll see a grade of 2.61% copper. Total tons that are mined are 41.4 million tons, so that includes all the ore and the waste that's produced from Bornite through the South Reef. The total mill tons are close to 37 million tons to 36.9. The total waste tons from underground are 4.4 million tons. These numbers are all over life of mine. Again, it's a 17-year mine life, and that allows us to produce 2.2 million tons per year from underground that gets hauled over to the old Arctic mill. The recovery, 90.9%, and the total tons of concentrate over the life of mine, 1.93 billion tons, and it's at a concentrate grade of 29.5%.
The overall recovered payable metal life of mine is 1.85 billion pounds of copper. Next slide. Capital and closure. You'll see in here the initial capital is $503 million, sustaining capital $363 million for a total of $866 million. I think what's interesting to note here is because of the synergies that we've got with the Arctic facility, all of these costs you're seeing here, the vast majority of them are associated with the underground operation. In the initial capital, 70% of that $500 million is for the underground portion, all the ramps, ventilation, conveyors, et cetera. The remaining 30% are for the surface infrastructures from water treatment plant to powerhouse to roads to shops to drive facilities to the ponds that we saw there on the previous map.
The sustaining capital, 90% of those dollars are assigned to the underground future development ramps, ventilation raises, et cetera, and that takes us to the $866 million. The mine closure of $81 million, because we're taking all the ore back to Arctic to be milled and we're utilizing the tailings facility, all the waste rock is going back. We have a very small reclamation and closure cost. We've got about two to three years of taking down the facilities, pulling up the ponds, moving all that material back to Arctic, and then we have about 10 years of water monitoring. It's a complete closure. It's returned back to its original state, and it's a cost of $81 million. Next slide. This is the total cost for the operating cost.
When you look at the second column in there, it's the total cost. You've got $1.5 billion for mining, $0.9 billion for processing, and G&A is $1.1 billion for a total of $3.6 billion. If you look over the dollars per ton milled, you'll notice that if you've been looking back at the Arctic reports that have been produced, these numbers are higher. You'd expect to see it on the mining side because we're underground mining instead of open pit. The processing cost has gone up and mainly due to going from 10,000 tons a day to 6,000 tons a day. The G&A cost includes all the insurance, road tolls, maintenance, and water treatment plants, etc.
The reason the cost has gone up is we've pretty much duplicated, excluding the road tolls and maintenance, we've pretty much duplicated the whole surface facility over at Bornite. We've got water treatment, we've got snowplow, we've got material to move, we've got camps and shops and moving people back and forth. That totals under slightly $100 a ton milled. We're at $98.91 per ton milled for the life of the mine. Next slide. Key environmental points. I know I've mentioned them a couple of times, but thought it would be worth touching base again. There is no tailings facility at Bornite. The Bornite site will be completely reclaimed, completely closed, gone back to the original state. Water treatment or environmental concerns at Bornite are nonexistent.
We had a long look, a hard look as long as we're taking everything back as we have in the plan and utilizing the Arctic facilities, that eliminates all of these issues with regards to Bornite. Minimal surface disturbance in the region, referencing again, utilizing the facility over at Arctic, utilizing the tailings facility and the waste rock dump. We're having very little impact from a regional perspective. We talked about the minimal footprint at Bornite. We kept it tight, compact, minimizing any kind of disturbance during operation and minimize the amount of work we have to do after closure. The one thing that also has a huge potential for us is utilizing the Bornite tails because it is a carbonate-based material. It's gonna be placed on top of the Arctic tails.
We are assuming we're kind of excited about some of the potential that we're going to see with regards to improvements in long-term water treatment. As part of that analysis, we are looking at doing a number of studies in the next year or two, looking at the advantages of mixing the Arctic tails with the Bornite tails. That's my last slide. Over to Elaine.
Thanks, Bob. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our shareholders for their continued interest and support. I have the pleasure of presenting the financial results of the Bornite PEA. In the PEA study, we used a long-term copper price of $4.20 per pound in our base case. We considered long-term consensus pricing from the banks, and our engineering firms also provided input on the copper price. The chart on this slide shows pre- and post-tax numbers. The PEA is showing strong cash flows, pre-tax of $1.58 billion and a healthy NPV of $552 million, discounted at 8% with a pre-tax IRR of 23.6%. After-tax NPV $394 million and IRR of 20%.
The payback period for initial capital is four years before tax and just under 4.5 years after tax. I have lost my ability to move the slides, operator, maybe you can help me out here. I'll just talk to the next slide. The next slide that's gonna pop up if you're following with me on the slide deck from our website. Here we go. Let me see what I can do here. There we go. The next slide here on slide 24 is our sensitivity analysis. This is showing changes in NPV and IRR at various copper prices. Our PEA base case at $4.20 per pound is highlighted in the second column here. I think the takeaway from this slide is that we're leveraged to the copper price.
A 5% increase in the copper price results in about a 1% change in NPV, and that translates to about $90 million in cash flow before tax. It's quite significant. Our technical report, once we file it, we'll show you other sensitivities, but at a high level, I can tell you a 10% increase in the copper price increases NPV by about 65%, it's significant. Also, if you look at capital and operating, a 10% decrease in overall capital costs increases NPV by about 12%, and a 10% decrease in operating costs increases NPV by about 30%.
It's not surprising that the project economics will be impacted from changes in capital and operating. On this next slide, I've included a high-level review of the tax impacts that the PEA has adopted. A detailed tax model was prepared for us by Ernst & Young in Vancouver. The effective tax rate is about 35%. Anyone wishing to do a simple cash flow model, taxes as a percentage of total cash flows is about 23%. The PEA does assume no opening tax basis for reducing taxes payable. The joint venture agreement actually distributes production directly to the owners, and it's up to the owners then to sell the product, manage its own revenues, selling expenses, and it's the related income taxes.
I'd be happy to review tax details or any of our financial assumptions, for anybody who's interested, on the call or afterwards, but please just contact me, and we can book a separate time for a call. Now, I'd like to turn the presentation over to our VP of Exploration, Richard Gosse.
Thanks, Elaine. I'll be talking about the mineral resources and exploration potential. If you could move to the first slide, please. The updated mineral resource statement for Bornite was prepared by Wood's Geology and Resource QP, Henry Kim. It's classified as an inferred resource. The important point here is there is no material change to the last resource update done in 2023. The in-pit resource and the outside pit Ruby zone resource are exactly the same as in the 2023 resource update. For the South Reef resource, a cut-off of 1.45% copper was used. Other technical and economic parameters used to determine the cut-offs were updated from the 2023 mineral resource statement, and are shown here in the footnotes. Elaine, next slide, please.
A portion of the in-pit resource is well above the 1.45% cut-off and would be amenable to the underground mining methods. This portion of the in-pit resource, totaling 14 million tons, is referred to as the in-pit South Reef resource. Adding it to the outside pit South Reef resource gives a total South Reef resource of 41.7 million tons that contains 2.5 billion pounds of copper at an average rate of 2.79%. This is about 40% of the total 6.5 billion pounds of contained copper at Bornite. The next slide, please. This isometric view of the Bornite deposit highlights the two parts of the total South Reef resource, shown in red, that plunges to the northeast.
Scale is on the right, so the block shown here covers an area of 2 km by 2 km to a depth of 1,350 m. The view also shows the Ruby zone to the west of South Reef at about the same depth and the 170 million ton in-pit resource that is amenable to open pit mining. Next slide, please, Elaine. This is some of the mineralized core from the South Reef zone. Copper sulfides are mainly chalcopyrite, chalcocite, and bornite. These patches of yellow and deep blue seen in veins and breccias are enclosed in the light gray host rocks that are dolomites and limestones. cobalt and germanium, two critical minerals, are associated with the copper mineralization, but there's not enough known about them to be included in the current resource.
This core from hole 187 shows a particularly well-mineralized interval in the lower three rows, with approximately 40% copper, 4,000 ppm cobalt and 300 ppm germanium over 1.3 m. Part of a 178-meter long interval that averaged 4% copper. Elaine, can I have the next slide, please? This slide shows the number of meters of core drilled over the history of the project. Starting on the left with the first holes drilled at Bornite in 1957. Almost 200,000 m have been drilled within the UKMP lands, of which 105,000 m were drilled on the Bornite property, shown in the blue bars. South Reef was discovered by the company in 2011, more than half a century after the first holes were drilled at Bornite.
Shown in green are the meters drilled at the Arctic Project and other prospects in the Ambler Belt. The two dark green bars on the far right show the 12,000 m of infill drilling at Arctic carried out by Ambler Metals in 2021 and 2022. Next slide, please. For those of you who are not familiar with the Arctic deposit, these are the probable mineral reserves reported last year. 46.7 million tons at approximately 3.7% copper equivalent. Roughly the same tonnage and contained copper as South Reef, but open-pittable and with zinc, lead, silver, and gold. This photo, looking east, shows the outline of the resource that sits just under the slope of the hill.
You can make out the drill pads and access roads on the hillside that were most recently used by Ambler Metals for the infill program. Next slide, please, Elaine. This final slide shows the locations of Bornite and Arctic within the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects area, about 120 km from east to west, to illustrate the size and mineral potential of the district, both around Bornite and along strike of Arctic. As Bob mentioned, Bornite is a carbonate-hosted deposit, and nearby prospects, including Pardner Hill and Aurora, are the same style of mineralization. Arctic is hosted by volcanic rocks and is referred to as a volcanogenic massive sulfide, or VMS deposit. It's in the center of an east-west belt that is about 100 km in length and hosts many prospects with similar geology, some with historical resources.
Many of these were discovered in the 1970s with not much more drilling. In addition to these prospects, there are numerous new exploration targets, many identified by a property-wide airborne geophysical survey carried out by Trilogy Metals in 2019. Together, the Ambler Belt and the prospects and targets within the UKMP area make up a highly prospective land package to be explored in the coming years. With that, I'll hand back to Tony.
Richard, thank you very much. Thank you, Bob and Elaine as well for all of the details regarding the Bornite PEA. At this point, what we'd like to do, operator, is open up the call to questions from any of the analysts. If you can please provide them with instructions on submitting questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, analysts who wish to ask a question should click the Q&A icon on the left-hand side of the screen. You will see the options, raise your hand to join the queue and ask your question verbally, or write a question to submit your question in writing. Analysts who have dialed into the conference call may press star then one on your telephone keypad to join the question queue. All other interested parties are welcome to submit their questions in writing through the webinar platform. I would now like to hand the meeting over to Elaine Sanders, who will moderate the Q&A session.
Thank you very much, operator. Tony, I see a question here about mine permitting. Maybe you can take this. Question is, when will the company's Trilogy and your partner, South32, start mine permitting, at the UKMP?
Yeah, it's a great question. You know, just so we're clear, I was very clear in my comments about South32, this has been a process that Trilogy has undertaken, so I can really only speak on behalf of Trilogy. The way our agreement works with South32 is we have a JV, which is Ambler Metals, and we have equal representation on the JV board, and the decisions are made on a consensus basis. You know, the relationship has been very positive up to now, and I expect it to be positive going forward. We have done a fair bit of work on the mining or the mine permitting.
In fact, if it hadn't been for the challenges that we faced with respect to the record of decision on the permit that had been granted to AIDEA, I feel we probably would be in the mine permitting phase already. But given the challenges that we have had, what we're likely to do is wait until we've got better clarity on what's happening with the road permit, and at that point, consider the best path in moving forward on mine permitting. What I will say is that we've done a lot of work on the mine permitting already. We've got a permitting preparedness plan. We've reviewed the permitting process with external consultants to determine whether there are any real challenges in terms of the permitting process and the best way to move forward.
We've had some initial discussions with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in terms of our permitting process. I feel that we're well advanced in the permitting process in terms of making decisions. I think the other thing to consider is that there have been some comments made by the new administration about the potential ability to expedite permitting for projects of a certain size. I think a number has been used of $1 billion, and the capital for the Arctic Project on its own is about $1 billion. We'd like to see what those initiatives are in terms of how the new administration moves forward with permitting mining projects in the U.S. and in the great state of Alaska.
Thanks, Tony. I think we've got a couple of analysts in queue, but I'm not sure if they're ready yet, so maybe I'll just read another question that I'm getting in on the webinar. This question's about jobs. Maybe Bob, you can take this question. What does the jobs or employment prospects look like for this PEA, and is it, you know, similar to Arctic, or how is it different, Bob? Maybe you could take that one.
Okay. Thanks, Elaine. Good question. Important question, because jobs are always a topic of conversation. What we've got for the Bornite PEA, the employment numbers will be approximately 340 folks, and that will be across the board from the mill to the shops to the underground to engineering. It's 340. Currently, because they're producing 70-
You know, they've got 10,000 tons and another 70,000 tons of waste. They're about 450, so we'll be slightly under what Arctic has. Also in addition to the employment numbers, we also have a study going on with an independent consultant in Alaska, and they're looking at completing an economic impact of the jobs for the region and for the state of Alaska. We should have that finished in the fairly near future.
Thanks, Bob. I believe there is a question from... It was typed in. It was from Stefan Ioannou from Cormark Securities. Can you comment on the variability of the Bornite's head grade profile over the 17-year life of mine plan? Bob, you wanna take this one?
Yes. In our final report, you'll actually see we'll have a production schedule along with the grades for each and every year through the 17 years. The grade at the front end is we're kind of fortunate that some of the higher grade material it sits probably about 2.6%-2.8% near the first three years. After that, every now and then we'll get a peak at 2.8%-2.9%. The lows might be 2.4%. It's fairly consistent. There is some low-grade material that we do have, and our plan that we have in the Bornite PEA is we'll have that low-grade stockpiled over at Arctic, and it'll serve two purposes.
If we happen to have a you know a quiet time where we're having a bit of production issues over at Bornite, we can feed the mill. Most of all, it's gonna be stockpiled and kept and fed into the mill as a low-grade stockpile at the end of the mine life. The grade is somewhere around 1.4%-1.6% as far as the low-grade stockpile.
Thanks, Bob. Maybe just to tack on to your question, I have another question about the number one ore body. They're asking whether we would be open pit mining the number one ore body, and I think we just wanna clarify the difference between the open pit and the underground. Can you maybe just comment on us with what's happening with the open-pittable resources at Bornite?
Yeah. What we've done on this study is focus specifically on the underground, specifically the South Reef, specifically sublevel long hole mining. That is our highest grade section. That's all we've done at this point in time. We'll just have to have a look to see what our future designs will carry into the later date and see which direction we go. It's strictly for the South Reef, and it gives us another 17 years.
That's great. Thanks, Bob. Oh, it's a geology question. I'm gonna pump this over to Richard. Questions around cobalt. Why is there no cobalt in the resource? I think we've looked at this before. Also, can you comment on germanium? Richard, maybe you could just comment a bit on cobalt and germanium that we see at Bornite.
Thanks, Elaine. Sure. In 2022, Trilogy did include cobalt in the NI 43-101 mineral resource, total of 88 million pounds of cobalt with an average grade of 210 parts per million. The best cobalt grades are in the South Reef deposit, which has an average grade of 390 parts per million. However, most of that cobalt is a byproduct that reports to a pyrite concentrate. Since 2022, Trilogy has started complying with requirements under S-K 1300 to provide support for reasonable prospects of economic extraction. The industry continues to work on research and development to extract cobalt economically. This time, the technical advances are required to support a cobalt resource under S-K 1300 reporting.
To be consistent, the company has not included cobalt in the current NI 43-101 resource. As part of this continuing research, Ambler Metals and the University of Alaska Anchorage have been investigating cobalt recovery using bacteria. These bioleaching studies are in the sort of early stage, but the initial results are sufficiently encouraging to scale up the test work this year. Less is known about germanium at Bornite. Germanium sulfides are seen in association with copper sulfides at Bornite. Due to technical challenges in analyzing for germanium, it hasn't been quantified for the entire deposit. In 2011, NovaCopper carried out systematic testing of four holes using an analytical method specifically for germanium and found up to 30 parts per million germanium over 17.5 m.
In 2023, a Master of Science thesis on the distribution of germanium at the South Reef deposit, completed at the Colorado School of Mines, found up to 125 parts per million germanium in select samples. Ambler Metals is now collaborating with the Colorado School of Mines with USGS funding to further investigate the distribution of germanium and other critical minerals at Bornite.
Thanks, Richard. Operator, would you mind just repeating instructions in case people are still trying to get their questions into the queue?
Yes. Thank you. As a reminder again, analysts who wish to ask a question should click the Q&A icon on the left-hand side of the screen. You will see the options, raise your hand to join the queue and ask your question verbally, or write a question to submit your question in writing. Any analysts who have dialed into the conference call may press Star then one on their telephone keypad to join the question queue. Any other interested parties are welcome to submit their questions in writing through the webinar platform. I will turn it back to Elaine Sanders.
Well, thanks very much. There's a few questions related to the road. Maybe I'll just kinda you know add them all together and have Tony comment on. Tony, there's a bunch of questions related to the road decision. If it's reversed and the road is approved, how long will it take to complete the road? What's gonna happen with AIDEA? I think maybe you wanna just explain AIDEA's process and what's the reclamation on the road? Would it be reclaimed after we finish mining? Can you maybe just have a few comments there, please?
Sure. Just to be clear, the proponent for the road is effectively the state of Alaska, and it's a development agency, AIDEA, working obviously with the local communities and working with NANA and Doyon, which are ANCs that are adjacent or have land in the Ambler Mining District. It's important to understand that the permitting process for the road began under the Obama Administration in 2015. The permit was granted in 2020 under the Trump Administration. Litigation followed directly after that.
Unfortunately, during the Biden Administration, the administration through the Department of the Interior determined that additional work needed to be done as a result of some more questions that have been raised through the litigation process, which is really what resulted in the significant delays that we've had since 2021, and the remand of a record of decision in 2022. I can't really speak to you know, the time period as far as how long it will take to build the road. That's a process that needs to be determined after a lot of technical work has been done. One of the limitations that unfortunately we've had from the Department of the Interior has been the ability for AIDEA to go out and do some of that technical work as necessary to make those kind of determinations.
In the past, what we've assumed that it would take roughly three years to complete the road, but that would not necessarily mean that we won't be able to get access. It would depend on whether there would be a pioneer road that would be built that would allow us to bring materials and supplies in to start the process of mine construction, et cetera. Those would be things that we need to determine. In terms of the reclamation of the road, my understanding from the information that's been discussed in the past is that we were looking at a 50-year term associated with the road, and then what would happen after that would be in accordance with the permit that would be granted.
When people ask about 17 years, it's important to understand that it's not 17 years. There's 13 years of Arctic, and then what would come in is another 17 years on the back of that, which takes us to that 30 years. That's assuming that there's nothing else discovered within the Ambler Mining District. It's important to also note that the use of a road wouldn't be limited to Ambler Metals because there are other lands that have a potential for mining and other projects that are being considered outside of the Ambler Mining District, and those would need to be factored in in terms of the use of the road, et cetera. That's what we know right now.
As I said in my comments earlier, we're hopeful that, as a new administration comes in and we start to see some clarity in terms of either the legislative, administrative or legal avenues, we'll have more, information to be able to share on where things are going. We believe that there's a very positive tone with respect to, moving the road forward from a legislative, and administrative, perspective. The feedback that has been coming from, Washington, D.C. and from Juneau has been very positive with respect to, the AAP moving forward.
Thanks, Tony. Operator, I believe you have callers waiting in the queue.
Yes, we have a voice question. The first question is from Brian MacArthur with Raymond James. Please proceed.
Good morning. I know this will probably be in the filed document, but can you just go through. You talked about repurposing things. I'm trying to figure out when the capital spent for Bornite relative to Arctic. Are we talking about, I assume Arctic will run right to the end of 13 years. You start spending capital, let's say T minus two or something. The reason I'm asking that is I'm trying to figure out where the NPV goes back to. Does it go back to, let's put it this way, the 11th year of Arctic mining, or is it three years before. Or exactly what have you assumed there for A, repurposing, and B, the actual timeline.
Yeah, maybe I'll start and then, Elaine or Bob, you can jump in in terms of, you know, how we've looked at the economics. By the way, Brian, we really do appreciate your support and the question. I think it's important to understand, you know, my comments earlier about what the purpose of this study is. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that regardless of what happens from an exploration perspective at Arctic or Bornite, that we've got the capacity to demonstrate a 30-year mine life in the Ambler Mining District. That's the really important consideration that everyone needs to understand. We go from a 13-year mine life, and we more than double that.
Not only that, but we put ourselves in a position where the reclamation costs associated with the Arctic project are deferred to the back end of the Bornite project. Those costs are not inconsequential. They're, in fact, quite significant, and the ability to defer them from an NPV perspective is quite meaningful. None of that has been captured in terms of the work that we've done on the Bornite PEA. The important consideration here, and I understand why you're asking your question, and Elaine or Bob is gonna jump in with some feedback, but the important consideration is that this is proof of concept to demonstrate 30 years because some of the feedback that has come back in the past is, does it make sense to construct a road into the mining district for a 13-year mine life?
This is important to really demonstrate to the stakeholders out there that we're not talking about a 13-year mine life. We're talking about 30 years, and that's assuming that we don't find anything else in the Ambler Belt, and we don't find any additional high grade in the Bornite deposit. You know, Richard made the comment about 176 m of 4% with a portion of that being 12% copper. We think there's lots of upside. Maybe with that, I'll turn it over to Elaine or Bob to get into some of the specifics.
Oh, Bob, I'm punting this one to you.
Okay. Thanks, Elaine. Yeah, Brian, it's. The whole idea is that once Arctic shuts down, we've got ourselves time to repurpose the mill. We've got two pre-production years, and during that period of time, the first job that'll get started over at the mill will be the paste plant system. That's our largest construction. Because the tailings facility is over there, we need a filter, we need a tailings sector, and we need to be able to produce a dry cake out of Arctic. That's at two years prior to the startup of Bornite. That's about $21 million-$25 million.
With regards to the other modifications within the mill, there's a regrind mill that's being put in, and there's some modifications to the talc flotation system and a few others with regards to flotation systems 'cause we're only doing copper, we're not doing zinc and lead anymore. All total, it's about $41 million, and the bulk of it is the filter that's gonna start at year minus two, and the rest of the modifications and refurbishment will be starting after Arctic is mined out.
Thanks, Bob. I think, you know, we wanna reiterate that this is really a backup plan in case we don't find anything else in the district. As you heard from Richard, there is a lot of prospects there. I've got a question here from Rabi Nizami from National Bank Financial. He's written this in. Thanks, Rabi, again, for your support. Tony, could you consider pursuing or expediting permitting of the mine to be concurrent with permitting of the access road?
It's an option, and it's something that we'll have to discuss with our JV partner, South32, in terms of considering the best time to start the permitting process. You know, I think I'll come back to the comment that I made earlier about mine permitting and the road. What we really need right now is we need a strong indication that the road process is gonna get back on track. As soon as we start to see that really changes the narrative for us in terms of starting to think about mine permitting, also starting to think about getting back on the ground and conducting exploration in the Ambler Mining District, whether it's at Arctic or Bornite. That's really gonna be the important consideration.
Once we've got clarity on how the road is progressing and where things are going, then I think everything's on the table. If we're in a position to be able to advance a permitting on an expedited basis, excuse me, through doing it in coordination with the construction of a road or through the pro-road process, is something we would clearly consider. Then it comes back to what I had said earlier, Rabi, about the administration and how it's gonna be looking on expediting permitting processes, 'cause that will also be an important consideration. You know, I think it.
I'd be remiss if I don't stress that, you know, this district is really replete with not just copper and zinc, but the metals that Richard spoke about with respect to cobalt and germanium. Now, our ability to recover that's gonna require more work, but we're in a great position to be able to really focus on the critical metals that are going to be so important to the U.S. economy going forward, and these are domestic sources of those metals. We would hope that, you know, that will allow us to really be able to think about how we can expedite that permitting process as quickly as possible.
Thanks, Tony. I think we're probably needing to wrap up here. Do you have maybe some closing comments before we hand this back over to the operator?
Yeah, I do. I really want to, first of all, thank everyone that joined us on the call today, and Elaine, that was very kind of you to acknowledge our shareholders who have been with us through thick and thin over the last several years. It's been extremely disappointing for the management and the board of Trilogy to be in the position that we've been in over the last three years, where we felt we just didn't have a path to be able to advance a spectacularly good asset in Arctic and really be able to demonstrate the value of the Bornite deposit. We feel that we're just getting our feet back on the ground, and we're in a position to really start to tell the story in a significant way.
I think there's a lot of upside in the Trilogy story, and we think that we're in a position to be able to deliver significant value over the next couple of years. This presentation will be available on our website. For anyone who's interested in doing a replay of the call or looking at any specific parts of the presentation, it will be on the website together with the call, so it should be up shortly. We want to once again thank everyone for joining us. With that, operator, I would ask that we close off the call. Thank you.
Thank you. This brings to a close today's meeting. You may now disconnect. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.