Hello, everyone. My name is Jon Ward, Head of Investor Relations at Inventor Capital. It's a pleasure to welcome you to today's discussion on Vizsla Silver's recently released feasibility study and convertible notes offering. I would like to introduce Vizsla Silver CEO and President Michael Konnert, COO Simon Cmrlec, VP of Project Delivery Fernando Martinez, and Director of Engineering Karl Haase, who will be presenting on this webinar. We will also have a Q&A session at the end, so please feel free to submit your questions in the Q&A box, and we'll do our best to answer as many as we can. With that, I'll hand it over to you, Mike.
Thank you, Jon, and greetings, everyone. Thank you for tuning into our webinar. We are excited to discuss the recently published Feasibility Study, which clearly shows Panuco as a tier-one asset of global significance. We will also discuss our plans forward and the fact that, as of today, we will have all the necessary cash on hand to build the Panuco mine into a leading silver and gold producer globally. With the Feasibility Study complete and financing in hand, Vizsla is excited to be forging the future of silver in Mexico. We will all be making forward-looking statements today in this presentation, so I ask that each of you avail yourself of this disclaimer, as it covers all of the statements from presenters. Vizsla's vision is to become the world's leading silver producer through our high-margin mine and the robust cash flow profile discussed in the Feasibility Study.
We have an internal goal of becoming a 50 million oz producer in the next 10 years, primarily driven by our Panuco mine and the organic growth possible through a high-potential property package. Vizsla's leadership is ready to drive forward growth and unlock value over the next phase of this project. My name is Michael Konnert. I'm the founder, President, CEO, and Director of Vizsla Silver. I'm also co-founder and managing partner of Inventor Capital, a leading natural resources investor and incubator based in Vancouver, Canada. We're focused on delivering the elements that the world needs. Speaking today are Simon Cmrlec, Fernando Martinez, and Karl Haase. Simon Cmrlec is Vizsla's Director and COO. Simon is one of the world's leading mine builders, having been involved in over 40 mine builds in his career.
Simon started his career at Olympic Dam and later led the construction of Inco's Goro Mine in New Caledonia, one of the largest mine builds in history. Following this, he joined Ausenco, the industry's top mine-building firm, and led the company as Chief Operating Officer until he joined Vizsla Silver in 2024. Notably, during his time at Ausenco, Simon led the team that delivered Las Chispas for SilverCrest on a lump-sum turnkey basis, both on time and on budget. Fernando Martinez is our Vice President of Project Delivery and is tasked with driving Panuco into production. His experience is ideal for this task, as he has held senior mining and engineering roles in Mexico at MAG Silver, SilverCrest, and First Majestic at similar projects to our Panuco. Karl Haase is our Director of Engineering.
Karl joined Vizsla in 2024 and is Director of Engineering for Inventor Capital and was formerly Director of Engineering at Sedgman and Engineering Manager at Ausenco. Recently, Karl worked on the team delivering Artemis's Blackwater mine in British Columbia. Today, we will close Vizsla's CAD 300 million bond issuance, and the net proceeds will arrive in Vizsla's bank accounts. This marks the closing of the largest bond issuance in the history of the silver industry. At this point, Vizsla is fully financed to unlock the Panuco project with 2x the Capex in financial capacity, including CAD 450 million in cash and CAD 40 million in equity investments, primarily comprised of Vizsla Royalties. The structure of the unsecured bond is as follows: a CAD 300 million gross offering with a five-year maturity and a 5% coupon and an effective conversion price of $10.51 per share.
It's very important to note that these bonds can be settled in cash, stock, or a combo at Vizsla Silver's election. We can choose to settle these without the issuance of stock. This is true because of the cap call price up to $10.51 per share. The loan is provisionally callable after three years if the stock is at or above $7.60 , and the cap call allows for a much higher conversion price. Why did we do this bond issuance? I know many shareholders have asked us, and I admit it certainly came as a bit of a surprise since we had the Macquarie facility announced in September. I think the rationale makes an incredible amount of sense. When we go through this year, I think it will be very clear to investors as well.
After spending nearly two years reviewing project finance options, in September of this year, we announced we entered into an agreement with Macquarie. We undertook an exhaustive review of options, including streams, private lending, and many other options. At the time, this was a strong project finance option for us. However, this was still a conventional project finance structure secured against the asset, funded in tranche-based drawdowns based on milestones and with typical restrictive project finance covenants. Around the same time as announcing the Macquarie deal, the Canadian market began accessing cap call bond offerings, which we took note of. This option was not previously available in Canada, and it only recently became so because of regulatory improvements. We reviewed these options in great detail, and we elected to proceed with the cap call bond offering for Vizsla Silver.
The rationale here was to replace the Macquarie financing. To be clear, this removes the project finance obligations that we have. The Macquarie facility was undrawn and not fully executed. It allows us to access this capital with a much lower cost of capital. As you'll see here below, significantly more flexibility, which is very important for the company and for its shareholders. As I said, this does replace the Macquarie facility. This flexibility allows us to move faster, to have complete control over the cash generated by the project, and have that much sooner. By that, I mean there's no project covenants, there's no completion tests. For example, there is no restriction in the case that we decide to choose to pay dividends or buy back stock with initial cash flow. That would not be the case with project finance.
We would have many restrictions in place, regardless whether it's Macquarie or others. This is the structure of project finance loans secured against an asset. Typically, these have a lot of complicated covenants and restrictions, whereas this cash is in our account. The only covenants that we have are related to remaining listed on the stock exchange and having a QSIP. Using this cap call mechanism, this offering is not equity dilutive, up to CAD 10.51 per share, which is a 125% premium to the reference price of the day of announcing. This is equivalent to raising money at a premium to our NAV, a 1.2 x NAV, which is accretive, of course, versus our current valuation, which is at a discount to NAV, which would be dilutive.
That is to say, it's like raising money in the future, but having access to it now that will allow us to unlock value at the project very rapidly. Another example here is that it's like Vizsla has raised the equivalent of 18% of our market cap. Even at a three times higher share price beyond that upper strike of CAD 10.51, say at $14 , equity dilution is less than 4%. This is done taking into account equity shareholders, making sure that we don't get diluted. Of course, founder of the company, first shareholder of the company, I hate dilution. That was a big driver for the reason why we proceeded with this cap call mechanism on this offering. There is an added benefit here because we bought the cap call.
We also see additional buying from the counterparty banks as the stock rises, as they do a positive hedge against their position. The 5% coupon is manageable. It is largely offset by interest earned on cash holdings. This is a feature, of course, of having that money on hand versus available by milestone-based tranche drawdowns. What does this mean practically? This means, of course, that we have completed our Feasibility Study. We are through the study phase of the project, and now we are fully financed and fully flexible. We have 2x our initial Capex on hand.
This is very important because it allows us the flexibility in the case, say, that we were to receive permits earlier than we expected, or in another way to say this, before the project finance facility had been completed, we would not have been able to draw down on that money and build as quickly as we can here. If we get surprised to the upside with permits, we are fully ready. Let's say those permits come on a Friday. We are fully ready on a Monday to drive the project forward at incredible speed, which is an enhancement on the time value of money here when it pertains to the project. We have equity alignment. Shareholders should be excited that the company has saved equity dilution and has now completed all necessary studies and financing to move Panuco into production.
We see the trading following the issuance as an overreaction and certainly as a buying opportunity. I bought 10,000 more shares this morning. I think management is steadily buying the stock as well today. We believe that this is a minor short-term disruption to the trend that we were on. Now, as we're fully financed with very few obstacles in our way to unlocking cash flow, this is an incredible time to buy stock, to be a shareholder of Vizsla Silver. We think the story is going to unfold very nicely here going forward. We are targeting First Silver by the end of 2027. Now that the feasibility has been announced and financing is achieved, we are waiting on our permits here. We submitted our application for permits. I'll get into this in a later slide.
We expect those permits by the midpoint of 2026, which would allow us then to go through construction through the second half of 2026 into 2027 with First Silver by the end of the year. I think it's important to highlight that we are ready. We are ready to unlock the value here with this money on hand. Vizsla Silver has tremendous growth potential. That's another reason why we're excited to complete this financing here. We see an incredible amount of catalysts, not only at project number one, but throughout the LAM package. At project number one, we are fast-tracked to production. As we just said, we're targeting First Silver in the second half of 2027. We're well-funded now, of course, and we're de-risking with the ongoing test mine that started at the end of 2024, at the end of last year.
Beyond that, we have a growing land package that we quadrupled since 2024. I always say that it's like having a time machine going back in time hundreds of years ago and taking your pick at an incredible district like Fresnillo or Peñoles or any of these San Dimas, very large silver districts, silver gold districts in Mexico. We have done that here. We have consolidated a larger package, stepping out from the original consolidation that we did in 2019, and now able to unlock value here across this entire property package, which has significant upside. Less than 70% of the property is mapped, and only 28% of the known veins in the original property have been properly explored. Beyond that, we have not scratched the surface on this district. Now, going forward in 2026 and at the end of this year, we are conducting district geophysics.
We're using low cost per unit methods to help us hone in on very exciting targets that we can explore and exploit in the future. Now, we are investing locally. I'll get into this slide a little bit further here. With the community first, we've secured 30-year operating agreements. Of course, we've won now four times in a row the National Sustainability Award at the project. Now, Vizsla Silver has the best project infrastructure that we've seen in our collective careers. We're sitting 45 minutes outside of Mazatlán by car. The project shares the same mineral potential and characteristics as San Dimas, which, of course, is one of the 13 billion oz districts worldwide, one of 10 in Mexico. San Dimas sits about 80 km to the north. In fact, many people have called Panuco a sidewalk San Dimas because of the true billion ounce potential and the two highways running through the property.
Site access is excellent. We have international infrastructure nearby with Deepwater Port and Airport in Mazatlán. Federal 230 kV power lines cross the property right over the mill site. Seasonal rain and underground dewatering are sufficient water supply for the project. This is all in an established mining district with incredible access to local labor and supportive communities nearby. Building on our 30-year production agreements with the local ejido, we have submitted our environmental impact assessment, known in Mexico as the MIA. We are excited and hopeful to have that key permit approved by the middle point of next year, by the middle point of 2026. Following that, we have the land use permit, the CUC, as well as some minor ancillary permits that will have to be granted, and we will be ready to move forward in building the project.
Now, we've been an important part of this community now for six years. We've invested in eight infrastructure projects for a total of CAD 8.6 million. This is all to benefit the local four communities. 70% of our workforce come from local communities, and we've had that number 70% steady for a number of years now. We are looking forward to employing more people from the region as we move forward into production. We are very proud of our health fairs, which provide much-needed health support to communities that do not regularly have access to such professionals. Now we've connected over 1,200 people from these communities with local healthcare professionals. That has been enhanced by our partnership with the Venados, which has been ongoing since the summer of 2024.
That's been an excellent tool for us to enhance our reach, to be better known in the community, as well as benefit the communities through broader scope initiatives. Now I'll turn it over to Simon, and he will take us through the feasibility study highlights.
Thanks very much, Mike. It's a real pleasure to be here today. Thanks, everyone, for joining. It's a pleasure to talk about this feasibility study, but even more of a pleasure to introduce the team that was responsible for it, with Fernando Martinez and Karl Haase joining us. They'll take us through the bulk of the presentation and really highlight some of the great work that was done during the feasibility study. I'm sure everyone's seen this by now in the news release that we put out 10 days or so ago around the feasibility study.
The study demonstrated an outstanding project with a post-tax NPV of CAD 1.8 billion, post-tax IRR of 111%, on an initial capital cost of CAD 238.7 million. This gives an outstanding NPV to CapEx ratio, which is a good measure of the efficiency of the use of that capital. It's 7.5x NPV to CapEx. On top of that, through the Feasibility Study, we've been able to demonstrate production, the lifting production, where we have now 20.1 million oz average payable silver equivalent production over years one to five. Over the life of the mine, we have 17.4 million oz per annum of silver equivalent production. This truly puts Panuco in the category of very large silver primary mines, ranking in the top three with that first five years of production.
Our costs really reflect the quality of the asset that we have, with our all-in sustaining cost at CAD 10.61 an ounce over the life of the mine, which is based on an operating cost of CAD 85.11 per ton milled. The great advantage we have here is the quality of Copala and Napoleon, and the proximity to that infrastructure that Mike spoke about before, which really lets us keep the costs down, both operating and CapEx costs and sustaining CapEx costs as we develop this world-class mine. The point here, I guess, is that this project is very, very robust. As we can see from those operating cost numbers, there is quite a lot of margin generated here for every ounce that is produced.
Within the press release and soon to follow in the technical report, you'll be able to see the full range of sensitivities that we ran for the project. I guess the most stark of those is against the middle price. Even middle price with a 50% decrease, so somewhere around CAD 1,775 an ounce of silver and CAD 1,550 an ounce of gold, the post-tax NPV from the project is still CAD 461 million with a post-tax IRR of 42.4%. These are world-class numbers. I guess, in most cases, that would be enough for a management team and a Board to decide to move forward with the construction of the project. It really demonstrates the robustness of the economics here, the robustness of the project, and again, reflects really well on the quality of the asset that we have.
With that, let's move forward into the details of the feasibility study. To do that, I'd like to hand over first to Fernando Martinez, who will take us through the mining. Fernando will be followed by Karl, who will take us through the process and infrastructure components of the feasibility study. Over to you, Fernando.
Thanks, Simon. Okay. Let's start with that site layout. We could say that the Panuco project has a small footprint, was optimized as much as possible during the feasibility study preparation, and just taking into consideration that the area is required for construction and future operation. Most of those areas are compressed or are close to the main deposits that we have, the Panuco project has, that are Copala and Napoleon deposits.
During the analysis that was conducted to select the location for some facilities, there were some trade-offs related with the process facility and also with the tailings storage facility. We can see the location of the Copala portal, which is a crucial location located close to the high-grade zones in Copala deposit because it's going to be the main deposit during the first years of production. Close to that portal, we have the CRF plant, which is going to provide backfill for the initial production. The distance between the Copala portal with the process facility is around 400 m straight line. Also, we have another portal for Napoleon deposit, which is going to be in the central portion of that deposit. The distance of that portal to the process facility is around 1.5 kilometers or less.
The distance between both portals, between Copala and Napoleon portal, is around 800 m- 1 km. Some facilities are located between those portals to facilitate the future operation that are related with the waste rock storage facility and also the ore stockpile. Something very important to mention here is that the project is crossed by two power lines, high-voltage power lines that will facilitate the construction for future operation. In this case, we are not going to require a long power line to connect with the main grid. It is going to be something that we facilitate. It is ready close to the operation. With regard to mining and processing, the mining methods that were selected for Panuco project are long-hole stoping and also drift and fill.
These numbers are very consistent according with the PA, small variation, 1%, if I remember it well, 76% for long-hole stoping and 24% for drift and fill. About processing, as you know, we are going to start with a throughput of 3,300 tons per day. We are going to have an expansion to 4,000 tons per day in the year number four. Here, the point is that we have a consistent grade during the life of mine, which is around 425 g per ton of silver equivalent. In the table, you can see that we are going to be focusing on the high grade. That high grade is located in the Copala deposit during the first year. We are going to start the production of Napoleon deposit, which is the other important deposit for the project.
This production for Napoleon is expected to start in the year number two and be ready with a stockpile in the year number four for the expansion. About Copala shapes and reserves, I could say that the reserves that we are considering for the entire project currently are close to half of the total resources. That means that we have a lot of potential to increase those reserves, taking into consideration that there are some space that can be optimized with infill drilling. In the slide, you can see the central portion of Copala. You can see Copala deposit. You can see the central portion where we are going to start our production during the early years. Close to there, there are some spaces that will be potential conversion for reserves. The total proven and probable reserves are around 7.9 million tons.
That represents 62% of the total tons considering the reserves. There is that kind of potential that we are going to improve during the coming years. About the mine development, we are looking here at the mine design for Copala. We are considering some pre-production during the first two years that are going to be focused in the central portion of Copala, where we have a high grade. That high grade is going to be close to the 460 level, which is the place where we have that test mine, and that is advancing very well right now. We are going to be ready to start production in the early years. There is also some development that is going to the Copala North, which is another important zone at the beginning of the production.
It is going to provide a lot of production during the life of mine. Copala South is going to be later in the life of mine. The most important here is that the current test mine is being driven very well. It is going to be arriving to the 460 level in the coming months. We are going to be ready to continue with the construction of the mine. With regard to reserves, Panuco project, we can see that the reserves are almost the same as the total, almost half of the total resources. As I mentioned in the previous slide, we have a lot of opportunity to increase those reserves to compare the resources to reserves.
Here, in the right of the slide, we can see that the Panuco project is located in the third position of the top three of the silver primary producers. Please take into consideration that this comparison is taking into consideration only precious metals. Next, I will leave the presentation with Karl Haase.
Yeah, thank you very much, Fernando, and Simon and Mike for that great introduction. I'll be taking you through the processing and TSF section, and then I'll step into the capital and operating costs after that. I'd just like to start up and say I'm really excited to present this Feasibility Study. There's been a lot of work that's gone into this. We'd like to thank not only the team here at Vizsla, but also all the consultants and contractors that have helped us out to produce this phenomenal result.
The processing overview, what we've targeted inside of the Feasibility Study, and it's a carry-on from the PEA stage, is we wanted to make a circuit that is robust. It can be executed easily or as easily as possible while still maintaining really high recoveries. I think this is just a comment again on how phenomenal this asset is, is that we've ended up with a very conventional circuit. It has robust design characteristics, and it still achieves a very high recovery. The recoveries across the deposit are in the 92%-94% range, which is in line with the PEA. We've slightly improved on the PEA recoveries for the first few years, which is added into that metal production that we see in the first years, one to five. To really go into the details of this circuit, we spent a year doing extra test work.
Even though the circuit itself looks very similar to the PEA, all of those assumptions have now been tested. We did a lot of variability work, but we also went beyond just normal variability work and did things like comminution testing, oxygen uptake testing, thickening rheology, paste strength testing. We tested every aspect of the design in this test work program so that we knew that when we came out of this study, we could execute on this design. With all this test work, we've ended up in a very robust location economically. The other thing is it just points out the strength of the PEA and how much work was completed that we've ended up with very similar recoveries or exceeding those recoveries, as well as similar throughputs that optimize the financials.
When we went to start this feasibility study, we did rerun those economics to make sure that we were still doing the right thing by the deposit. The phased approach still made the most sense for this Copala and then transitioning into Napoleon. In saying that, the flow sheet is a pretty conventional three-stage crush leading into a ball mill. This circuit is run in many mines in Mexico, many mines worldwide. It's known how to operate, which is great. We'll be able to get skilled operators that can run this circuit very quickly. We go into a thickened leach, which is also once again very common, easy to run. We go into a CCD circuit in phase I, which basically just splits out the silver solutions.
When we were doing the test work, we actually got better results in the test work than we had assumed from the PEA. We have a lot of operational flexibility from the results we've seen in the thickening test work and the ability to get really good solution tanners into our Merrill-Crowe refinery. The Merrill-Crowe circuit is very conventional in Mexico for silver. It's been commercialized since the 1950s. It's well understood. It's well run. It's a known commodity. We will be able to get up and running and get really good results very quickly. The final stage of the phase I plant is cyanide detox and tailings. We're using the SO2 air detox approach, which is, once again, the similar theme here is that it's well known, it's well understood.
It's very flexible in operation, and the results we've seen will exceed the environmental standards that we need to meet, which is fantastic. In year four, we do an expansion, and the expansion is focused around basically optimizing the energy put into the ore to get the maximum recovery. What we're doing is we're floating the sulfides. Once we have those sulfides into a concentrate, we regrind that concentrate to a fine size. We do a high reagent or an intense concentrate leach, which then pulls out a lot of those sulfide-contained gold. That allows us to basically keep very high recoveries even when there's sulfides in the ore, which is important for Napoleon, but not as important for Copala.
Moving on to the TSF, the location was defined in the PEA, but as with other studies, we did make sure that this was the best location, especially heading into permitting. We wanted to make sure that when we permitted this tailings stand, that it not only would be the best environmentally for the local communities, but it would also give us the ability to extend the project as required or use it for water source and all that sort of thing inside of the project. The tailings pipe is from the process plant, it's about 5 km along the existing road. It's about 2.5 km by as the crow flies. You can see that it does go along a route that's basically optimized for the declines and inclines that you want to see with a tailings line that's pumping slowly.
The life of mine TSF capacity is just under 7 million cu m . However, we have an ultimate capacity of up to around about 9 million cu m . That's just the extent of which we've studied this area to date. There's probably, I would say, we could extend that further if we had to. However, as we go throughout the mine, we actually intend to put less and less tailings into the storage facility and more into backfill. As we continue through mining, we should get almost to the stage where we're putting everything back underground. There's no downstream communities in the watershed, which is very important.
When we did the initial location assessments, we wanted to make sure that there was a lot of safety built into this location, and we wanted to make sure no communities would be impacted if the worst were to happen, which we were also not planning for. Located within these, the TSF is located within our current concessions. Yeah, just one last point is it is integral to our water management plan. We do not have any contact water release because we can store water in the wet season inside of the TSF, and then we can use it throughout the dry season, which is very important to making sure that we are not using additional resources from the community. I'll jump into the capital, and then I'll hand it back to Simon. Looking at the capital, it's CAD 238.7 million initial capex.
That's split with CAD 60 million going into mining, which is lateral development and those sort of activities, and then CAD 63 million going into the process plant. Additional process facilities covers the tailings facility. That CAD 18.7 million is majority of the tailings facility. On-site infrastructure is things like bulk earthworks and the high-voltage switch yard and things like that that enable the process facility to operate. The life of mine sustaining cost is broken up into primarily mining, which is once again that lateral development. That's counted as sustaining capital. The process plant has three TSF stage dam raisers as well as a paste plant which gets included in year one. When you look at the breakdown, which we've benchmarked against many plants, the mechanical equipment to all the other disciplines benchmarks extremely well.
We're extremely comfortable with where we sit in terms of that benchmarking. What it tells us is the reason we can keep this capital low is not because the plant design or anything has very low quantities. It's actually all the ancillary infrastructure that really comes into play here. As Mike talked about, we're an hour from a deep water port that's along a highway, which I've never had that luxury in my previous projects. The power line runs directly over the processing facility. We have very little high-voltage runs that we have to deliver. It's got a large capacity within that line. When you talk about capital intensity, as Simon mentioned, having a seven and a half NPV to initial capex is extremely positive. It means that just by the strength of this asset, we'll be able to pay back this capital quickly.
It also means that we can be flexible with if we want to bring that phase II upgrade earlier for any reason, we can do that. We could put more paste underground if we had to. We have a lot of flexibility in how we operate this facility because of how phenomenal this asset is. Just moving into the operating costs, once again, Simon mentioned this upfront, but these are phenomenal. We benchmarked against industry, and we're very comfortable with where we sit. The main strength and the reason why we can keep these so low is because the mining is close to surface, the lateral development required is not substantial. By having that very convenient ore body that's very high grade, we actually managed to keep these costs low for mining.
Processing, it's a similar story, but just by the metallurgy of the deposit, which it could be very challenging or it can be very easy. What we found here is that on an overall basis, this is a very positive metallurgy, and we're getting very high recoveries for not a huge amount of effort in that processing. The topography of the overall site has led us to having convenient TSF locations that we can manage with a single embankment and other things like that. I won't drown on with too many numbers, but looking at the all-in sustaining cost of CAD 10.61 per ounce silver equivalent, it's an industry-leading tier one style of deposit. We're very excited to share this with you guys, and we're looking forward to really executing this project. I'll hand back to Simon.
Thanks very much, Karl. That's great. Thank you, Fernando. It's great to be able to introduce more of the team members to all of you out there. Our big focus for this year has actually been building out our team and getting ready for the construction. We're well poised to move rapidly forward, so we're making sure that we've got the right people in place. I guess one question that I'm often asked is, especially before we publish the feasibility study, how does it compare with the PEA? The answer is it compares incredibly well with the PEA. We've seen some really positive changes like the silver and gold grades or the silver equivalent grade increase significantly. We demonstrated that through the resource update that we put out back in January.
That's converted really well into the, obviously into the feasibility study, but into the initial reserve that we were able to declare on the back of the feasibility study. In terms of production, the total payable ounces over the life of the mine are right in line with the PEA. The big difference is that we've brought that production forward. Our average production, as we talked about, has increased. It was around 20 million oz over year one and two in the PEA. It's now 20 million oz per annum over the first five years of the mine life. I think as we continue with the infill drilling, we'll see the opportunity to bring more ounces into the reserve and potentially extend that as we move forward as well. The life of mine payable ounces, which is not a great measure because of exactly that.
We've got a huge opportunity here to grow the reserve and to grow the production into the back end of the mine plan as well. At 17.4 million oz, it still defines a pretty phenomenal primary silver mine. All-in sustaining costs, we're within 13% of what we had in the PEA. Again, as we bring more ounces into the reserve, we'll actually, I think, likely see these all-in sustaining costs come down slightly. We'll make better use of that mine development that Fernando and Karl talked about as we fill in the gaps in the mine plans that exist at the moment. Our initial capital costs increased only by 7% between the Feasibility Study and PEA.
For those of you that I've spoken to before, you know that this was really important to us, that we didn't want to take a step backwards in the feasibility study and end up with a CapEx that was 2x what we had in the PEA, which quite often occurs. I think all of the work that we did in the PEA to really shore up that initial CapEx has paid off and showed that we were in the right spot with the PEA and we're in a great spot now with the feasibility study. Having more than 90% of the initial CapEx, the direct to the initial CapEx actually based off of quotations is a really strong place to be.
It's a huge number, and we undertook a big procurement exercise here because we really want to be in a place to move forward very quickly as soon as we have those permits. It is a very robust initial CapEx. It benchmarks really well, as Karl said, across any metric. If you look at the ratio of mechanical equipment prices to the rest of the estimate, or you look at comparable estimates in the region of a similar source of plants and projects, it benchmarks really well. Of course, the NPV and IRR, $1.8 billion NPV post-tax and 111% IRR post-tax. The big numbers, they demonstrate the quality of the project and really demonstrate that cash flow that will allow us to build the project and then pay it back very, very quickly.
I guess just to talk a little bit beyond the Feasibility Study and mentioned before that one of our priorities that we have at the moment is just really making sure we've got the team in place to deliver and to be able to move forward quickly into construction. Like Mike said, one of our objectives this year is to get ourselves set so that if we get the permits on a Friday, we can start construction on a Monday. I think Fernando and Karl are two exceptional leaders in our team that you got to meet today. We have, below Fernando, a complete mining team who have been responsible for the development of the test mine across the year. A very strong team and a team that's proven its capability and its ability to deal with challenges, to get things ramped up.
It is not easy starting a mine from scratch, and they have managed to do that over the course of the year. We have also enhanced our site management teams, our procurement teams, and our contracting teams, and we will continue to focus on that and really focus on having everything in place for execution so that we can start as soon as those permits arrive. In terms of enhancing value of the project beyond the feasibility study, there is a lot of opportunity here. The largest of those is really to, now that we are underground, start conversion drilling from underground in Copala. We will talk a little bit more about that on the next slide. We are really happy to be making some good progress towards that.
We think there's an opportunity here over the very short period of time to convert a lot of the resource that we have now and bring those ounces into the reserve even before we start production, as well as tests and more conversion drilling, particularly around places like La Luisa, where we've got some very nice high-grade pockets of material, pockets of ore in the reserve at the moment. There is a lot of potential there. We stopped drilling at La Luisa more than 12 months ago because we're focused on moving the project forward and defining it, but that's really got the potential to grow into another even standalone mine as we move forward. In terms of processing, Karl spoke about the extensive metallurgical test work that we've done this year. We are continuing with that metallurgical test work, really focused now on optimization.
I think we've done a great job in terms of de-risking and definition. We now have the opportunity to continue with that test work, focus on the optimization, and get as much information as we can before we go into production. We know what levers we have to pull and what levers we can pull to increase the value of the project. Another piece of work that we're doing at the moment, and this is in conjunction with the information that we're getting from the test mine and particularly some of the blasting and the seismic information from that. We really want to review the mining methods at depth below the Copala town, where at the moment we have that is where the drift and fill is.
We think that there's quite a good chance further down and a bit deeper below the town to actually move to long-hole open stoping and get the benefits of that and the increased production rates that come with that. This speaks to we're starting to think now about expansion. As we bring more ounces into the reserve, what might that mean for us in two or three or four years' time? As we're in production for a couple of years and we're looking to expand the project overall.
We're really focused on things like the waste rock storage, some paste testing, some CRF testing, and those sorts of things to look at how we can get more paste and waste rock underground to Karl's point, minimize the amount of material going into the tailings stand and remove the tailings stand from any sort of constraint as we move forward with the mine. That's some exciting work as well. On top of that, really starting to think about what could expansion options be once we're in production, once we get past year four, we bring Napoleon online, what's next after that? Because there is just a lot of potential with this project as we move forward. One of the most exciting things that we're just about to commence now is really this infill drilling in Copala.
If you look at the diagram here on the left, it shows the test mine and the top of the development there. The top drill bay that you can see is actually at the 480 level. We've constructed that drill bay. We're just running power to it as we speak right now. We expect by the middle of December to be drilling from there and starting to infill in some of that Copala area immediately around the first year of mining. As we move down to the 460 bay, you can see the second drill bay that we plan to put in. We plan to have that running in January as well. We will continue to convert to do this infill drilling from underground. It is much more cost-effective to do that.
I've talked about this quite a bit before, but it reduces the length of the drill holes by hundreds of meters in some case to be able to test some of that area that we really want to. That is very exciting. I think over the next 12 months, we'll see the results of that drill program and the wider infill drill program really come to bear. In terms of Vizsla Silver, we've talked quite a lot about the dual-track strategic plan, which is still holding true and progressing well. The next step for us is obviously the approval of permits and then very rapidly thereafter a construction decision. Everything at the moment, all of our planning is around that in the first half of 2026. To Mike's point, if permits happen to come early in that first half of 2026, we will start construction immediately.
We're well-resourced to do that. We're well-advanced in terms of procurement, particularly procurement of things like the surface plant and equipment, which we need vendor data there to advance the engineering. We expect to have that awarded in the next few weeks. We're very well-advanced with things like mining contracts, and we're getting close to final negotiations around those mining contracts. As we advance them, we expect to award the full-time mining contract in the next month or so. We are really advancing some of the other early contracts like the earthworks contract. As soon as we get those permits, the first thing we really want to do is start with the construction of the roads and the construction of the tailings stand. I think we're in good shape to do that. As I said, we've started to fill out our team. We've more than started to.
We've actually made considerable advances this year in filling out our team. We are literally ready to go as soon as we have that permit decision. In terms of other exciting stuff, the exploration of the wider property is still a real priority for us as well. The financing that we've just done that Michael spoke about and explained really facilitates this. It removes any restrictions that we had from a project finance facility around exploration and around spending money in other parts of the property as we would like to really unlock the value that's there. We continue to drill out to the east of the project, and we made a discovery earlier this year at Animus. We're continuing to drill at the north and the south of the current resource.
We are also just about to start that program at Santa Fe, where we have been doing quite a lot of exploration this year, quite a lot of mapping and some of the geophysics this year that lets us define those drill locations and get started out there. We have a lot of focus on building project number one and then thinking about how to expand project number one and make it even better. There is quite a healthy focus also on the exploration of the rest of the property that we have and the opportunities that are there. This summarizes a little bit of this drilling on the original Panuco property. That area around Animus continues to be very interesting for us, where we did make that discovery earlier in the year. We will continue to test that.
We will continue to test at the north and the south of the current resource area. We have had a great opportunity this year to really think about, well, more than think about, but to put in place some really good practices to make sure that we are approaching this as scientifically as we possibly can. We are not wasting drill meters, but we are really targeting some of the best areas and not leaving anything behind. For those of you that are a lot more interested, that are more interested in all of this piece too, Dr. Jesus Velador, our VPX, did a webinar a few months ago that is available on our website and talks in great detail about the work that we have been doing this year and also some of our plans as we move forward.
Just talking about the rest of the property, it's sometimes easy to forget that the Panuco project sits on such a tiny part of even the first property that we consolidated way back in 2019. The total disturbed area of the project is around 200 hectares out of a total property package of about 6,500 hectares. Not a super relevant stat, but it puts into perspective how tight and compact and what a small area we're looking at with that first project. The exploration around the original Panuco district is still very much a key priority like we talked about on the previous slide.
We have assembled this fantastic land package over the past 18 months with the acquisition of the Lagara project, about 32 km north of us, halfway between Panuco and San Dimas, in a really prospective area with some old mining that's quite clear to see there. There's even been quite a number of papers written about the old mines that operated there, but it's never seen systematic exploration. It has a lot of similarities to the original Panuco project district. We really look forward over the next few years to start to explore that more, to start with some mapping and start with some geophysics. We're actually starting with some geophysics later on this year around Lagara. Santa Fe, which is just a phenomenal opportunity for us, is something that we really acquired over the last 12 months.
We are very excited about the potential there to expand the resource and to really be able to define a project pretty quickly that is orders of magnitude bigger than the operation that's there at the moment. We can move quickly to expand that operation and expand the mine and make that potentially the second area of production for Vizsla Silver. It is a very exciting acquisition, something that's captured our imagination for quite a while and something that we're now really pleased to have our hands on and be able to move forward with the exploration that we have there. I think with that, I'll hand back over to Mike just to let Mike sum up for today. Thank you very much, everyone.
Thank you very much, Simon. Thank you, Fernando, and thank you, Karl. As Simon said, really great for our supporters, our followers, and investors to get to meet more of the team. I think you can have great confidence in Fernando and Karl and their abilities here that's driven this study forward and will continue to drive the project forward into production. We do have some important catalysts coming up here. Simon touched on those. Of course, the test mine progressing very well into our zone there at Copala with the drill base being put in. Very exciting. There's a significant amount of inferred resources at Copala that will be converted and we hope to be converted, I should say, and upgrade the resource confidence over time. I recall during SilverCrest Metals' ramping up to production, there was a lot of excitement around the infill drilling going on there. We expect that to be the case here.
There will be consistent updates as we put news out and as we drill some very exciting inferred mineralization and probably beyond in the area around Copala, Copala being probably the most significant silver-gold high-grade vein in Mexico discovered in many decades. This is a very fertile area to do that and a very exciting area to have steady news flow out of. Of course, permits are exciting for us here. We submitted our MIA in February. Now, maybe take a side note to mention that Marcelo Ebrard, the Secretary of Economy of Mexico, was in Acapulco at the Acapulco Mining Show just this last week and was addressing the crowd. It was probably the most constructive and bullish on permitting that we've heard out of the Mexican government in many, many years, talking about even exploration increasing.
There is reason to be hopeful, optimistic, confident around permitting. We've done everything in our control in terms of the application and the work that we've done, I think, to make it as straightforward as possible. Of course, the project being abundant with water from underground and from rainwater capture and in an area that's seen mining for 450 years should be very constructive for our permits as well. Following the permits, we'll certainly have a construction decision on the back of this feasibility and, of course, now being fully financed. As Simon touched on there, like I said earlier, we do feel like we've had the luxury of a time machine going back to these great districts in Mexico. We have one. We believe it's a billion oz district, and we'll continue to explore that. We're not just project number one.
We're not just a feasibility study. The feasibility study, of course, is a moment in time, but we continue to grow. I think you'll see further additive acquisitions within the district. I think you'll see really exciting exploration news out of Santa Fe and other targets that we have. Of course, that exploration is meaningful as it helps us grow into what we want to be in 10 years, which is a 50 million oz silver equivalent producer. We touched on this slide. This slide's readily available on our presentation on our website. I think really what's more important is just to summarize this presentation, to go back to three things that stood out to me.
Of course, the first is that we have a top three silver equivalent producer in the making here in the first year, first year one to five of production north of 20 million ounces. That's really incredible for a project to go from consolidation to exploration, now to that type of production profile, fully funded, moving towards production, very robust cash flow. The team that you met today is responsible for unlocking that and many more that aren't on the call, of course, at the project. Another point that stood out, of course, the seven and a half times NPV to Capex ratio. That is spectacular. It's unlike anything we've collectively seen in the company here. I know Simon's built 40 mines. He's seen hundreds of studies. This is truly world-class, something that you don't see in mining very often, if at all.
We're excited to show that NPV to CapEx ratio because I think it just speaks to the quality of the project when we're looking at our peers. I think the third is steer away from using the criminally underrated, of course, undervalued, but I'll say we are massively undervalued here. I think it's primarily because of all these reasons here. It's incredible capital efficiency with the NPV to CapEx ratio. It's that top three production profile, but also the fact that we have this land package that has never been explored. It's a multi-generational pipeline of assets, and we have the dominant position here. We're thrilled about that. We're trading at less than NAV. We're trading at around 0.6 NAV right now.
I recall, again, during the construction of our now-gone peers, Gatos, SilverCrest, MAG, it was very common for those to trade above at a premium to NAV. We think that we're moving towards that. Again, this was a momentary overreaction, a sell-off due to the, I think, misunderstanding of the news of the convertible debenture, the bond issuing that we did. We've taken the opportunity to buy more stock today. We think that Vizsla Silver's future is very, very bright. We're very excited to be fully funded to unlock this value. I think we're ready to turn over to some questions. Jon, could you help us out with that?
Thanks, Mike, Simon, Fernando, and Karl. This concludes the presentation portion of the webinar and a reminder to please submit your questions in the Q&A box provided. To start off with you, Fernando, from a development perspective, what potential roadblocks do you foresee preventing you from reaching initial production in the second half of 2027?
It is a good question. It is something that we were analyzing. I can tell you from the technical perspective, there is not too much risk. We say that we have been working with a test mine. We have reviewed the information that we prepared from the geotechnical campaign. This is one of the concerns that we had before. We confirm that the information that we received has been accurate. The only thing that could be a risk that we are working on is related with the contractor. We need to get the productivity expected from the contractor. That is why we are conducting the proper due diligence to get the best contractor for this project. In that way, we are going to avoid that kind of issues in the future.
Thanks, Fernando. Over to you, Simon. How is the permitting process going? What key permits remain outstanding? I think you're muted, Simon.
Excuse me. Thanks very much for that, Jon. I guess to answer the second part of that question first, the two key approvals that we need to start construction are really that change of land use, which follows the approval of our MIA, our environmental impact assessment. Today, we submitted our MIA application in February this year. It's been progressing very well along the statutory timeframes for the submittal and the review and hopefully the approval of that document quite soon. We've been through an initial review, and we've been through a question and answer period. It's now back in the next stage of review along that timeline.
Today, we've seen progress exactly in line with the statutory timeframes in Mexico, which has been great to see. We hope that it will continue to move smoothly through the process.
Thanks, Simon. Over to you, Mike. How is the company monitoring community sentiment as the project transitions from exploration to construction? What has been the feedback thus far?
Thanks, Jon. Very easy to describe this one because we're really a part of the community. We get that feedback, that sentiment daily at the project. Of course, we hire 70% or employ 70% of our workforce from the local community. We have community relations teams. We really are involved. That was something that we set out to do really from the start at the project over the last six years.
The sentiment that we receive really is that they would like us to move the project forward faster. I think there are a lot of happy people in Concordia and Copala, Panuco, and our communities in the Sajito area to see this financing because they know that this unlocks faster progress for us. That is wonderful. I think there is something to be said about this being a mining district for 450 years since the Spanish. Historically, people have been employed by miners here. That sentiment is clear to us as we discuss our plans moving forward. There is excellent sentiment towards the project.
Simon, back to you. When will you start the procurement process of equipment?
We have started that now, Jon. We are actually well advanced. We are planning in the next month or so to really award the bulk of the equipment packages related to the plant and the surface infrastructure as we move forward. We made very good progress on that during the feasibility study. We have received some good and complete bids. We are in that evaluation process right now. Similarly, as Fernando talked about, we are in that evaluation process for the mining contractor. Those two awards are the most important ones for us in the near future. The equipment really gives us all the information, the vendor data that we need to complete the engineering for the process plant and surface equipment.
The mining contract, getting that awarded as soon as we can actually gives the mining contractor the time to establish their fleet and to ramp up to be able to support us with the development of the mine ongoing past the test mine.
Thanks, Simon. Staying with you, can you speak to any off-take agreements arranged at this point?
We haven't really arranged any off-take agreements at the moment. Just a reminder, we're producing DORA here. The off-take opportunities or the selling opportunities for DORA are quite well understood, quite well known, quite easy to price, and all those sorts of things. We don't see entering into any sort of especially complex off-take agreements in the near future.
Thanks, Simon. Back to you, Fernando. What is the estimated dilution based on mining method? How has this changed relative to the PEA?
Based on the information from the stope optimizer, the estimated dilution for long-hole stoping is going to be 36%. That also will be an addition of that 2% of unplanned dilution. Related with the drift and fill, that's estimated at 31%, an additional dilution of that 5%. In comparison with the PEA, we optimized those numbers. That's related with the work that was performed by the mining consultant, where it was a deep analysis of that because we had before 47% of dilution for long-hole stoping. We had also close to 39% for drift and fill. Working on that, we improved that dilution. The planned dilution was also improved after taking consideration that the geotechnical campaign considered around 11,400 m. After we took that information, we complete the evaluation, and we calculate with more precise number that dilution.
Thanks, Fernando. Over to you, Karl. What potential exists to expand the mill throughput capacity beyond 4,000 ton per day planned for phase II?
Yeah, thanks, Jon. There are a few opportunities in this regard. One is we're currently looking at test work that if we expanded the primary grind size for the phase II flow sheet where we do the flotation, do we see any additional losses? At the moment, we're seeing relatively low losses from that sort of approach. There is an opportunity to expand that grind size to like 100 micron and then still get really high recoveries, and we could get a higher throughput through that phase II expansion mill. The other benefit to where we are in the world is also just that the flow sheet is very conventional.
We could also look at additional equipment in the future and expand this relatively rapidly with known just additional combination energy, things like that. It is not planned at this phase, but there is plenty of opportunity.
Thanks, Karl. Staying with you, is there room to expand the capacity at the tailings storage facility if new centers of mineralization are discovered beyond what is in the mine plan?
Yeah. Similar to what I said in the presentation, the actual ultimate capacity is already larger than what we are planning for. That is because we know that we have this inferred mineralization that we could end up with. I think looking at the topography of that valley and where the embankment sits and being there in person has really helped my understanding of that. There is definitely room to further expand if we have to.
I think that the approach for Vizsla is to actually try and move as much of that material underground in a more sustainable way. That is our big focus is we could extend the life of the TSF just by putting more underground. As that ratio goes to more paste backfill, the better off we will be as a company.
Great. Thanks, Karl. Back to you, Fernando. What is the total cost of the ongoing test mine program, and how has it progressed to date?
Yeah, thanks, Jon. The expected budget for the test mine is around CAD 6.5 million. There is a small variation in the box cut construction. That is including box cut and also the underground development. There was a small variation in the box cut, but that was solved with some additional ground support required.
The current advance, but we are estimating that we are going to be aligned with the budget. The current advance is 58% of the total meters that we're planning. Currently, we are close to reach the 460 level where we are going to obtain the bulk sample. That level is going to have also some level access that is around 100 m, 120 m. Also, the old development that is taken into consideration, 169 m. That's the current advance.
Sticking with the test mine, Simon, when do you plan to initiate underground drilling at Copala?
Yeah, thanks, Jon. In the next couple of weeks, we actually developed the drill bay at the 480 level, like I said. We're actually just putting a bore down basically to run a cable from the surface to power that drill rig, that drill bay. We're taking the opportunity here to really increase the electrical infrastructure that we have underground to support that drill rig and the next one that we put in at the 460 level.
Thanks, Simon. Now switching gears, Mike, how does the flexibility afforded by the recently announced financing improve Vizsla's ability to pursue regional consolidation or strategic acquisitions?
I think it's important to be clear that our focus is on Panuco here on this project. Certainly, over the last several years, we've been active in building our relationships in the area and building these relationships in the area and consolidating more ground again along this trend.
I think what we'll see in terms of near-term acquisitions would be more in the area, more of the same, more that's going to allow us to basically broaden our scope in terms of exploration, look to potential new areas of mining, but also really just help enhance that dual-track strategic plan that we have, drive project number one into production. Again, the speed that we can use this money to develop project number one is much more fast than we had under the project finance facility, of course. There's no drawdowns. There's no restrictions and no project-related covenants. We can unlock value with this funding very, very quickly with project number one. Also, we're able to make these acquisitions. We're able to explore outside of the mine area. We're able to explore Santa Fe. This really helps us become a bigger, better company in this area in our footprint because of that flexibility.
Thanks, Mike. Staying with you, will the new convertible bond financing be more dilutive than a pure equity offering?
No, in fact, it's the opposite. It's far less dilutive. In fact, not dilutive up until $10.51 US share price. We intentionally purchased the CapCall mechanism, which you could think of as insurance against dilution in and above the 25% premium conversion that a typical convertible note would have. We brought that up 125% to CAD 10.51. It's an additional transaction as part of the convertible issuance, but something that protects shareholders from dilution. Again, we are shareholders, so we are allergic to dilution. We don't want to see it. We felt we were very well covered by this CapCall.
The added flexibility is going to generate far more upside and benefit for shareholders. Another way to think about this is that we raised almost 20% of our market cap. I mean, let's just back up here. We raised 20% of our market cap. If the share price triples, let's say at $14 , we would only see 3.8% dilution because that's slightly above the, or I should say, significantly above the CapCall upper strike there of CAD 10.51. Effectively, this maxes out at 12% dilution at infinity share price. If the share price were to go to CAD 100, the maximum dilution we would ever see is 12%. If it were to go to CAD 500, 12%. It's very, very friendly in terms of dilution. Again, no dilution between today's share price and CAD 10.51, the upper strike of that CapCall instrument that we purchased.
Thanks, Mike. One more for you. How does the CapCall mechanism reduce our cost of capital relative to the debt financing package announced earlier this fall?
The CapCall itself, I would say, limits dilution, which is effectively limiting cost of capital, of course. Really, the overall offering that we did is what is more than 100 basis points cheaper than the best project finance deal we could negotiate in terms of cost of capital. We looked at this from a cost of capital perspective, which yes, it is cheaper, which we appreciate. Of course, having the money upfront and the coupon being only 5%, that allows us to pay down or pay those coupon disbursements really largely out of cash on hand from our interest from cash on hand, which is an incredible place to be versus drawing down tranches of project finance. This is cheaper, yes.
Really, the key here is the flexibility. If we're focused on the time value of money and unlocking value at the project as fast as we can, that's an excellent thing for management to do. The flexibility really, I think, is what we love about this in addition to that more efficient cost of capital.
Thanks, Mike. We have one last question for today for you, Simon. You touched on this during your presentation to expand on the near-to-medium-term exploration plans.
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Jon. I know this is a topic everyone always wants to talk about. Just to put it into numbers, I guess it's handy to talk about numbers of drill rigs on site. For the exploration to the east of the current resource area around that Animus area, and then to the north and the south of the current resource area, we have three rigs on site. We have a fourth rig on site moving towards Santa Fe. We will have two rigs drilling underground within the first quarter of next year, certainly one by the end of this year and the next one in January with all things going to plan. We think that over the next 12 months, we'll add another two rigs likely focused around infill. La Luisa is one of the first targets for that where we can see some significant opportunity for growth. We'll then see how the drill results go from both the east part of the property and from Santa Fe and areas like that.
We have the capacity now to increase the drilling there as is appropriate and as we have those targets that we need to continue to test. While this year, for people that watch drill rig counts, this year might have seemed slow. We had two for most of the year drilling exploration and six drilling geotech. Look forward to next year when we really see the number of rigs both in terms of infill and exploration around the district ramp up.
Thanks very much, Simon, Mike, Karl, and Fernando. That concludes today's webinar. Thank you all for your questions and attendance. If we did not get to your questions today, please send us an email at info@vizlasilver.ca. For additional information, please visit vizlasilvercorp.com.
Thank you.
Thank you, everybody.
Thanks.
Thanks.