Good morning. I will now turn the call over to Fiona Childe, a VP Corporate Communications and Development . Fiona, please go ahead.
Thank you, and welcome everyone to New Found Gold's technical webinar on the recent Preliminary Economic Assessment for the Queensway Gold Project, located in Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador. Joining me on the call today, I have Keith Boyle, Chief Executive Officer, Melissa Render, President, Michael Kanevsky, Chief Financial Officer, Jared Saunders, VP Sustainability, and Rob Assabgui, Study Manager. We are also joined by our consultants and PEA authors from SLR Consulting, David Robson and Lance Engelbrecht. I would like to take this opportunity to thank both SLR and the Stantec team for their hard work on the PEA and the tremendous support they have provided us over the past several months. Presentation slides accompanying this webcast can be found on New Found Gold's website or within the webinar. Following the prepared remarks, we will be opening the call and webinar up for questions.
Before we begin, I would like to direct everyone's attention to our disclaimer slide, as today's discussion may include forward-looking statements which are subject to risks that could cause our results to differ from those expressed or implied. We ask that you please refer to the cautionary notes included within the presentation and news release. We will also be referring to non-GAAP measures. More details about these measures can also be found within the notes and appendix of our presentation and news release. Technical information in this presentation has been reviewed and approved by Keith Boyle, Chief Executive Officer, who is New Found Gold's designated Qualified Person as defined under National Instrument 43-101. With that, I will now turn the call over to Keith.
Good morning, everyone. I want to start by just giving the acknowledgement to our home Newfoundland. It's a fantastic jurisdiction to be in. We've got tremendous support from both government and communities. We're 15 kilometers outside of Gander, and people have heard me say many times now that your Tim Horton's coffee doesn't even get cold when you get to site. We're just thrilled to be initiating this PEA that shows very robust potential operation for the community of Gander and the island of Newfoundland and creating the jobs for the skilled workforce. As an overview, we really took a phased approach, essentially building a small mine in order to fund a big mine. Phase I will be a 700 tons per day open pit with a custom mill that's on the island.
Phase two is a 7,000 tons per day open pit with on-site processing, and then phase three is really adding the underground as a sweetener on top of the open pit. We used the initial MRE that was published back in March, and we've had an excellent conversion of resource to minable resource in the PEA plan. That's what we've got, but really we've got that 110-kilometer strike with two main fault systems. We've got a 70,000 m drill program underway that is defining the resource and better outlining the resource that we have in moving it forward, but it's also exploring the strike, the depth, and cap potential. What's our development strategy? First phase is really building that small mine with the toll mill. It's clearing. We've got to move the power line.
We're setting up a crushing plant at site so that we can crush it down and then ship it to the toll mill. Stockpiling, so we're operating at an elevated cutoff, as you've seen through the higher grades in the earlier years, and stockpiling the lower grades to process on site. That phase one average production is over 69,000 oz at $1,282 all-in sustaining costs. Phase II , that production, that cash flow is going to fund phase II, which is the construction of our 7,000 tons per day plant. Construction is to start in year three with completion in year four. Processing would start in year five, and the first five years of production would average 172,000 oz, just under $1,100 all-in sustaining. Over that, from years five to 13 of mining, would average 129,000 oz a year at $1,206 all-in sustaining.
We're processing the highest grade upfront and stockpiling the material so that at the end of the mine life, the last couple of years of mine life, we'll only be processing the lower grade stockpile. In phase three, this is in year five, we'll develop the underground and produce from the underground in years six to ten. It's really meant to show how that little bit of high grade from the underground can impact positively the production profile. We're using a cut-and-fill mining method, something akin to what you would expect in narrow-vein mining. There are five different ramp systems. We did plan around all our resources that are there, and we'll be hauling out with small trucks. It'll be a small mine plan. The highlights: we've got an NPV at 2025.
We're using $2,500 gold, so NPV is $743 million, high rate of return, 56.3%, less than a two-year payback on the initial capital of $155 million. We've got the growth capital for phases II and III of $585 million and generating a life of mine all-in sustaining of $1,256 an ounce. Our productions, again, from years one to four, this is over 69,000 oz. Years five to nine, so really the heart of our production after we start the large mill, is over 172,000 oz a year with the total life of mine of 1.5 million oz. I want to stress that just the core was used in our planning. We do have a couple of peripheral areas that we'll get into in a minute as far as exploration potential, but we just did use the core. Speaking of our mineral conversion, we had a fantastic mineral conversion.
Overall conversion of the resource to the PEA mine plan was 92% of the indicated resource and 74% of the inferred. You can see on the underground, less of the inferred was converted, mainly because we wanted to increase the cutoff grade there, but really good conversion in the open pit. It's because we used that $2,500, and the pits were very robust in the MRE. Just reviewing the two mining methods, in the background you see a layout there of the designed mine. In the open pit, pretty conventional. We're using small equipment, 70-ton class trucks with 10 cu m buckets. The total life of mine, just over 26 million tons at 1.65. We are using, and the optimization was completed with 5 m x 5 m x 5 m block model. What I would consider in a narrow vein situation, probably just a good conservative approach.
We're also looking at an owner-operated fleet in here. The sequence, of course, is to mine the high grade first and stockpile the material and always process the highest grade you have available. The underground, we've got the five different zones, and we're using three meter width in terms of mining. We've got opportunity there to really be more selective, but at a PEA level, we felt it appropriate to do three meters. We're just using rock fill as a backfill method as part of that. We did convert the 1.1 million tons at just 6.7 g per ton over a five-year period there at a nominal 700 tons per day. With the exploration potential, we do see opportunity there. In graphical form, you can see on the left the open pit mine schedule.
We're going to be moving about 16 million tons a year as far as mining goes. The run of mine material in the dark blue at the bottom, we switch over to the chart on the right, and just blow it up, if you will. The two lines there show the grade, so the open pit grade, mining the high grade first and then leveling out. Our stockpiling is stockpiling in grade buckets so that we're able to process higher grades first. You can see the higher grade from the underground and the gray bars on top of that that come in at the underground. The other aspect to this mine plan, which gives me a lot of confidence, is that a lot of the material is in the indicated category.
In particular, in years one to five, we have over 80% of the ounces in the indicated category, so a really robust mine plan. Melissa will get into some of the drilling that we're doing to upgrade some of our inferred material. The life of mine overall, 75% of those oz are in the indicated category. We've got work to do, but we feel pretty confident in the mine plan that we do have outlined. As far as processing, we've done three phases of metallurgical test work. The first two phases focused on Keats iceberg, lotto, and golden joint zones. The third was on Keats West. We do know that when the grades are above 2 g a ton, which from the Mineral Resource we know is about 75% of our oz, we get good recoveries in the plus 90% range with crush, grind, gravity, and leach.
However, the below 2 g material does have sulfides or pyrite and is refractory. We added a sulfide flotation part to the plant. You will have noted in our press release that we've allotted 48% of the gold is reporting to doré right on site, and then 44% of the gold reporting to concentrate. We felt at a Preliminary Economic Assessment level, ensuring that we've got a good solid plan ahead of us in order to properly evaluate this. Our test work now is going to really focus on what we are going to do as part of the next phases. The other aspect to this project is because we're going to be doing our toll milling in the first phase, we're able to mine out a pit to start with, and it'll be Iceberg as the first one in order for tailings deposition.
That really is top-notch, best in class. I know it's not a term we want to throw around too often, but this is best in class in terms of risk mitigation when it comes to environmental, the long-term environmental liabilities. On site, we won't have any dams to worry about. Right now, we're looking at the input deposition as part of the long-term plan. Let's walk through. You know where Newfoundland is. Our property takes up about 2% of the island, so it's a large one. We've got 110 km, large land package. Let's focus in on the resource area. The resource we've already reviewed: 1.4 million oz in indicated and 600,000 in inferred. This is what the mine design looks like. Pretty typical, a bunch of open pits. We've got our waste management facility, overburden, and the proposed plants.
We've got the existing power line that has to be moved. Typical site layout for a mine plan. With the underground, as I mentioned, we have five different ramp systems, and we planned out the resources on those different ramp systems, and it's wide open at depth. Phase I, in other words, years one to four, this is what the progression looks like for the mine. Phases II and III, so years five to nine, you can see in the Iceberg and Keats West that we've got some tailings deposition. We've got the waste dumps growing, and so is our mineralized material stockpile. Years nine to 13, we've basically mined out the pits, grown the waste pile, and started filling in the Keats as well. The last couple of years, we processed the rest of that mineralized material, filled the pits, and are ready for reclamation.
The last slide gives you a representation of the rehabilitation phase. We cover the waste dumps and cover the three pits and reclaim them. The other pits will fill with water. Now I'd like to hand it over to Melissa to give you a sense of, yes, this is what we have, but there's more to come. Melissa.
Great. Thanks, Keith, and thanks to everyone who's joining us here today. I will now provide a high-level overview of our ongoing and planned exploration activities for 2025. Now with the initial MRE and PEA completed, the wealth of information gained from those studies is being used to guide our next phases of exploration. Of course, with a focus on the AFZ core and the location there of the PEA , both looking to increase confidence in those core mineralized areas in addition to expanding on the resource that has been defined there to date, but also not losing sight of what we believe to be the district scale potential of the project.
We also have regional exploration activities ongoing, looking to make new discoveries along those prospective fault zones, the Appleton Fault Zone and the JBP Fault that are known to be spatially associated with the discoveries made to date. Next slide, please. We'll now zoom into the AFZ core area to start on the location of the PEA . Work here drilling in 2025 will focus on that category conversion drilling, converting largely from inferred to indicated. Next slide. Also the step-out drilling to expand on the resource here as a number of these zones are open and only shallowly explored to date. The yellow traces are the planned drilling for 2025, and we now have just the inferred resource blocks showing that we're working to upgrade to that indicated category. Next slide, please.
Zooming in here to Keats West, this is where we completed our first infill program of 2025. Again, the yellow traces are the planned holes, some of which are already completed, and the blue is the inferred blocks. Next slide. We focus largely on the high-grade corridor at Keats West to start. Here we have the results of that first infill program targeting the high-grade corridor. You can see those robust grades and impressive thicknesses through the core of the Keats West open pit. This information did correlate well with the MRE block model, of course, with some local variations as expected. We also did identify some new mineralization that's not currently captured by the MRE , even within the open pit.
Work now will transition to infill on the lower grade areas where we can also get some high-grade surprises and follow up on some of that mineralization that we identified that's not currently captured by our models or the MRE . Next slide, please. In addition to the infill and step-out drilling plan for 2025, we're going to continue with our excavation activities in the AFZ core area. So far we haven't covered Keats and Iceberg, as you can see here in this overview image. Keats is on the left side and Iceberg on the right. Keats has been excavated, mapped, and detailed, channel sampled with results received over an important segment of the Keats zone. You can see the grades assay data plotted along the channels and the grade contours there. Iceberg has been stripped and mapped. Next slide, please.
We are now just about completed the channel sampling program there. As you can see here in this image with the orange lines, these are the channel lines that are spaced 7.5 m apart, covering that core area of the Iceberg zone. This work is all to add geologic certainty to our models that are being used to constrain the resource estimates and add high-density assay information to help us understand the grade variability throughout these domains. These results are pending, but of course, when received, they will be disclosed and used in any updates to our MREs in the future. Next slide, please. Once the channel sampling and the mapping and everything has been completed at Keats and Iceberg, we will then pivot to completing a grade control drilling program. You can see here, those are the yellow drill traces.
The red and purple blocks are just the high-grade blocks from the MRE, the five to ten and ten gram per ten plus buckets. These grids are at five-meter centers. The idea here is, again, adding high-density assay information through these key areas that are sequenced in that phase I of the PEA so that we can build a more confident grade control model for those regions, which will be important information as we progress towards development. Next slide, please. Lastly, for 2025, we will continue our excavation efforts, which are actually ongoing as we speak. You can see the images there of the work that's taking place to uncover here at Lotto, just north of Iceberg. The orange polyline there outlines the extents of the planned excavation that will expose a 210 m segment of the Lotto zone.
Again, this will follow a similar sequence of activities of what we have done at Keats and Iceberg to then complete a detailed map, validate our geologic models, and then transition to a detailed channel sampling program to add that higher density assay information through this important zone. Next slide, please. Stepping back here now, I'm going to transition to speaking more to the project's upside potential. Here we have a long section view of the AFZ core area looking to the west. As I mentioned earlier, the majority of our drilling has been focused quite shallowly in that kind of 250 m above domain, as you can see here. I've got the MRE block model showing where you can see the near-surface pits and then the high-grade plunging underground segments. Work now will transition to looking at the depth extents of some of these zones.
Last year, we did get quite adventurous in doing some deeper drilling, looking between that 500 m to 1 km vertical depth. You can see we, sure enough, intersected some pretty interesting mineralization that's circled by the blue and green in the image here, where we saw broad domains of low grade, localized high grade, an abundance of quartz veining and mineralization that looks very similar to what we get at near-surface. This was a proof of concept. We are exploring in an orogenic system and wanting to show that the depth potential here, and certainly those results demonstrate that the system does persist to these depths. There is a lot of opportunity still near to the MRE footprint. That's really what will be the focus of our 2025 drilling here, our step-outs that are proximal to that footprint and the pits and underground development shapes that we have now.
Last year, we did step out between Golden Joint and below Dome and identified a new area of significant veining with high-grade mineralization known as Golden Dome in the orange circle here and some new high-grade material below Dome identified by the yellow circle. Those are some areas that we would consider kind of low-hanging fruit and we'll be looking to expand on as part of this year's program. Next slide, please. Now stepping back to look at the strike potential of Queensway North, it's important to note that last year we did gain over 13 km of strike length through the acquisition of Labrador Gold's Kingsway Project. They had identified a number of near-surface discoveries that have characteristics very similar to what we see at the AFZ core along the Appleton. There is high confidence that the system continues this far north along the Appleton.
In late last year, we initiated our first drill program starting with some of those discovery areas, and we've had some very exciting early success at identifying some of the highest grade mineralization found there to date at Dropkick and Pistachio in particular. The next slide here that we'll dive into will look at Dropkick specifically. Dropkick is located 11 km along strike on the west side of the Appleton. Here, this is a long section view looking at that zone. A historical discovery was made by Lab Gold. They identified a nice low-grade mineralized structural system here. With our step-out drilling, we intercepted new high-grade mineralization on the south end of it. Here you can see some of those pretty exceptional results. This zone is open and work is ongoing to expand on this discovery area.
It's also important to note that this is not included in the MRE as results from this program were received after the cutoff date. Next slide, please. To finish up this segment of the presentation, just stepping back again, looking at the regional district scale camp potential of the project. This is just a view looking northwards along the Appleton and the JBP faults with the grab samples plotted as these columns where you can very clearly see them mapping out those significant regional structures. We do have boots on the ground activities ongoing and will be ongoing throughout the fall to advance more early-stage targets through prospecting, mapping, soil sampling, and then trenching later in the year. Focus is primarily on the strike extensions of the Appleton, both through Queensway North. Next slide, please.
Through to Queensway South, we have been active at Queensway South for a number of years. You can see the grab samples there clearly highlighting the southern extents of the Appleton fault here through the Paul's Pond and Greenwood regions. This is over 40 km along strike from the AFZ core. There is no shortage of targets here that we are both advancing as part of this year's program and looking to define new ones, getting them to the drill-ready phase in hopes of making that next big discovery and improving the camp potential here for the project. With that, that's the end of my segment. I thank you, and I will pass it over to Keith to finish things off here. Thank you.
Thanks, Melissa. Let's run through the final few slides here that really look at how robust economically we've got a project. We look at our production profile by phase in terms of ounces, and you can see how the number of oz in phase one averages just over that 69,000 oz a year. Phase II, years five to nine, over that 170,000 oz, really having that contribution from the underground, even though it's only 700 tons a day, some really good grade coming in. Overall life of mine AISC is $1,256, and years five to nine at the higher production is just under $1,100 an ounce. The capital cost by phase, we've got $155 million in phase I. We're basically leasing a full equipment fleet for owner mining. We've got some on-site infrastructure. We have to move the power line and build a crushing plant and office building and whatnot.
Off-site, we've got the toll mill. We've allowed for some upgrades to the toll mill to accept our material. We've got about 35% in the indirects and contingency of 25%. Phase II is building our own plant on site for $442 million, and then phase three, that's the full development of the underground of $143 million with equipment and contractor development. Overall, we've got a total of $1.065 billion as total capital. In terms of operating costs, you can see on the right the mining, $40 per tonne processed. That means an operating cost in the mine open pit is $4.91 per tonne moved. That was generated from a ground-up calculation, processing to $25.3. That's an average, a weighted average of the toll milling and the on-site milling. The on-site milling is just under $21 a tonne and the G&A at $6.90.
We've also included in our costs the concentrate transport and treatment charges and recoveries for that. When you look at the cash flow from this, and it's the main theme that we're trying to get at, build a small mine to fund the big mine. At $2,500, we pay it back just within two years that first phase. You can see how the cumulative pays back or the phase I pays for the phase II. At the spot, basically at the end of phase one, we've fully paid for the expansion and are on a positive cash flow right away. That was the strategy, and that's what we're presenting here. In terms of leverage to gold price, for every $100 increase in gold price, we get an additional $89 million in NPV. There is a lot of torque in our operation. Our project development phase, we've just issued the PEA.
As far as the work going forward, Melissa went through in detail what we're doing on the geology front. The theme is being methodical about it, taking the right small steps in moving the project forward. We've got lots of engineering going on right now, metallurgical test program, the geometallurgical model to better define the refractory gold distribution. We've got some geotechnical and condemnation drilling and the phase one trade-off studies and detailed engineering that'll progress through the end of this year and into next year while we're permitting the small mine with an objective to begin construction at the beginning of 2027. Phase two, once we've done that engineering, we'll complete the feasibility in the latter half of, or sorry, Q4 2026 into 2027.
The permitting we've allotted for two years, given the approach that the federal government has wanting to streamline the permitting process, we thought with all the work we'll be doing and having a mine permitted that the permitting at a federal level would be two years. The detailed engineering procurement of long lead items in order to start that construction at the beginning of 2029. For ultimate growth in 2031, we think that's a reasonable approach to get into production quickly and methodically in order to have our small mine pay for the big mine. In summary, quick startup. We're focused on a path to cash flow, low initial investment, quick payback, first production plan for 2027. Cash flow from the small mine pays for the big mine. We're building basically 170,000 ounce a year producer at just under $1,100 an ounce, all in sustaining.
The NPV to initial capital ratio is just under five, which is extremely efficient capital. We've got optimization studies underway. This was a PEA. We didn't, I'll call it stretch the elastic. We made, I'll call it reasonable assumptions. We're in the right jurisdiction. Newfoundland want mines. They've said they want five mines by 2030, and we'll be one of them. Communities, local strong support, met with the Town of Appleton Council there just last week, and what great reception. I can't, you know, I can't keep, I'm so glad we're there, and the skilled workforce is there as well. Infrastructure, access, and look, mineral resource and growth. If Melissa showed you there that everything is just still wide open, we've got lots of potential to grow this, to grow the high grades. We're still hitting lots of high grade.
I'm just super excited by being able to announce something that, you know, it's quite exciting to see a path now to cash flow. This concludes my formal remarks. I'd like to now hand the call back to the operator for the Q&A session.
We will now begin the question- and- answer session. In order to ask a question, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Again, for any questions, please press star one, and we'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question will come from the line of Don MacLean with Paradigm Capital. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Good afternoon, guys, depending on where you are. Very nice to see this phased approach. Certainly makes for a very appealing rate of return. A question for Melissa about the experience in converting the inferred to indicated. I mean, with these nuggety gold deposits, we often find that as you tighten up the spacing, the area of influence that was given to the inferred changes, and often we'll see an upgrading, but it doesn't always work that way. Can you give us a bit more color as to what your experience has been and what you might expect because you do have a pretty large chunk of inferred sitting there?
Hi, Don. Yeah, no problem. Again, we're kind of early on the conversion drilling, but I mean, looking at other areas where we have that density of drilling, we've kind of gone through those motions. It really depends on what zone we're working in and where you are within some of what we refer to as oreshoots. Certainly within some of the more robust zones, we can definitely get upgrading happening. Yeah, like you said, we can see the opposite happening. I think with how we handled the estimate and how the high grade was controlled there, we've given ourselves some wiggle room to hopefully see improvements in the majority of the places. Again, also the opposite could happen. It really comes down to what zone we're exploring in and the robustness of those oreshoots.
Okay. Maybe a second question to you, Keith, about the phase one CapEx of CAD 152 million . How much of that would be funded by the equipment vendor loan?
The assumption in the CapEx now is that the equipment is financed. The financed equipment is in that number.
How much is the financed equipment?
I don't have that one at the tip of my fingers. I've got somebody looking at it very quickly.
Okay. Just to be clear, the CAD 152 million is net of that, the equipment being financed with.
That's correct. Every one of the equipment guys, you know, when they gave us the budget quotes, gave us, and by the way, we financed this stuff. We assumed a general financing package that is pretty typical in the industry. I think it was, what, LIBOR + whatever, and 8%. I think 8% was the interest rate we used, over a five-year payback.
Okay. Maybe just one last question. I don't want to hog the phone, but the open pit average grade, to be clear, was about 1.65 grams.
Yep.
You were saying that the recovery on the more than two grams is good. As the, I guess, the metallurgical tests were properly characterized or thoroughly characterized, in your opinion, sort of the active carbon component and the sulfite side of that material that is going to be, you know, less than the 2 g that's pulled into your open pits.
I wasn't clear on the question there, Don.
Okay. The 92% recovery that you have for this core, are you quite satisfied that you've got your carbon and your sulfide characterized properly, fully, given that the grade in the open pit is less than the two grams where you said the good recovery was?
I'll give you my answer, and then I'm going to pass it over to Lance from SLR Consulting here, who is the metallurgist that did this. My high-level answer is 75% of our ounces are above a 2 g cutoff, plus or minus. We've assumed basically a 92% recovery with that material that we've sent to the toll mill and internally as well. When you look at the overall material balance, 48% of the gold is getting generated by doré, and 44% of the gold is being sent to concentrate. I'll call it a bit of a lower number or conservative number. I hate using the word conservative. It doesn't apply here.
It's more, absent the right information or the more detailed information from the test work, we were just prudent in saying, look, we actually don't know how we're going to clearly manage this, but we need room in terms of that estimate. Lance came up with this balance. Now, I'll hand it over to Lance to give you a more technical answer on that to be able to back it up.
Okay. I won't get too technical, but there have been a significant number of tests performed on the material that's going to be processed by the toll mill. This clearly showed that the high-grade material gives high recoveries. The choice of a carbon-in-leach circuit is to deal with the carbon that is present in varying amounts in the different zones. The material that will be processed in phase one is actually significantly higher than what you mentioned the average open pit grade is. That's why the first phase works. The toll mill will use a gravity-CIL flow sheet, and gravity recoveries have been excellent, and the remainder of gold is generally leachable.
What has to be done in follow-up phases, as Keith mentioned earlier, is a geometallurgical model, which will look at things like sulfur and arsenic so that we can determine where the sulfide and arsenopyrite associations are and ensure that that material is processed in the on-site mill, the big mill that will be built.
Okay, thanks very much, guys. I didn't want to hog the bucks.
Okay.
I have to back the operator.
All right. Thanks, Don.
Our next question comes from the line of Mike Niehuserr with ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead.
Hi, can you hear me okay?
Yep.
Yeah. Really, congratulations on a really thoughtful mine plan and schedule. It's surprising how fast, or in a period of time, to be able to put something together this robust with the nuances, and it really seems to fit. Congratulations on that. Question on, as you go to the second phase, it's quite a step up to 7,000 tons per day from 700 tons per day. The question is, is that 7,000 tons, is that based on optimizing the resource in the second and third phase, or are you looking at that basically as capacity for long-term growth potential down the road, a phase IV, phase V?
Short answer, Mike, is yes.
Okay, what I wanted to hear. Sorry for the long question.
Yeah. No, actually, the sequence of events was, all right, what can, and it should always be, in my view and my experience, it should always be the deposit should dictate what the size of operation you should have. When we did the first pass, I said, I asked, what size can the deposit support? It usually comes out about 10 years, if you've got that kind of deposit, and we do with the number of pits. It was about 7,000 tons per day. I think in the resource, we had 2 million tons a year as a first pass. When the mining engineers took it on, they saw that, you know, a 7,000-ton-a-day plant was good. We just took that as the base from which to say, okay, how do we now, can we phase this? We went through a number of iterations, but came out with a phased approach.
To answer the second part of your question, we've got lots of exploration potential that's showing up already with results. We'll be able, and again, it's meant to also handle the lower grades. So yeah, we'll be in a position for the future to come.
I just think it's great because it just seems like you've scratched the surface because the resource that you have really wasn't tailored to the, you know, getting into production. There's a lot left to find. The operator, no fault of hers, interrupted me when you were talking about the toll milling. I missed that. Could you reiterate, is there any information about who that is or how far along you are in the discussions and how confident you are that that toll milling will be available?
We've had initial discussions and probably a little bit more than initial discussions. I can't announce anything right now, but there are a couple of idle mills on the island. That's what we're pursuing.
You do have options then?
There are options, yes.
Right. With the, you're going to be putting tailings back into the pit, and that's really cool. You're not going to be sterilizing further underground development or production potential?
Melissa might not have covered it, but some of that drilling that she's doing is, we call it condemnation, but it's exploration, really, in order to make sure we don't do exactly what she said was sterilized. Anything we mine under the pit that didn't optimize will require a crown pillar anyway. Yeah, we would just leave a crown pillar and move on. Fairly small amount.
Lastly, with you're putting the tailings back in the pits, do you have to put a liner, or does that just naturally cover with a pit lake and that takes care of it?
Based on the test work we have, we have non-acid-generating tailings that have a leachate, which does have arsenic in the leachate, but it's below water quality standard. That's okay. What'll dictate that is the hydrogeological results. In other words, is there groundwater flow through the area? We're doing that hydrogeology drilling and test work now. As far as a liner goes, we don't see the need for a liner at this time.
is lots of work left to do, but really an excellent view on the future. Thanks for taking all my questions.
Thanks, Mike.
Our next question comes from the line of Daniel McConvey with Rossp ort Investment. Please go ahead.
Good day, Keith, Melissa, everybody. Brittany got the PEA out. A couple of my questions have been answered, and those ones, the 7,000 tons per day, I guess it comes with expectations of future exploration success because that's a fair number given the high-grade nature of the recent deposit. We answered that one. The other one was actually just on the tailings. It's early days. You're doing the testing. It's not acid-generating, but there is arsenic. Best case now, there is no indication that there'll be a need for perpetual water treatment after the mine's closed. Is that fair?
We've done the test work on the tailings, and there won't be a need for perpetual work, perpetual treatment of the tails. Jared's our VP Sustainability is on the line. He can comment, but that we know of. The issue for us will be the groundwater. If the water flows through the pit, which we don't know until we do the test, until we do the drilling and test work.
Okay. Just on phase two mining equipment, there's no CapEx for the mining equipment. That's because, you might have already answered this too, is that it's just assumed that you're going to, that'll be going to leasing and going through operating costs for the next direct equipment.
It's in the sustaining because it's part of phase one.
Okay. All right. Keith, the timing is, I think it's realistic. Is there any, given how everyone gets excited just how fast Newfoundland's permitting, there's a lot of engineering to do. Would you call the timeframe, I guess you'd call it realistic, are you also hoping it's a touch conservative?
Dan, it's realistic.
Okay. We're kind of thinking.
Let's put it this way. I like to put out something that we'll be able to deliver on, so we'll be working hard to beat them.
Okay. Sounds good. Main question from Melissa. I have not been following closely the New Found Gold story since 2020 when it first hit the tape, basically. You now have a lot more understanding of the geology. Your ability, obviously, money and drilling is one thing, but a lot of drilling has taken place. You know, we have five years of drilling and come out with this MRE. The confidence level of growing this resource on strike over time, why is it likely a lot better now than, say, two years ago?
I'm not sure if I follow. Two years ago, we were open to the idea that these fault systems continue and that we would be able to continue to expand on them. I suppose I'm just trying to wrap my head around the question.
Can I just interrupt, Melissa? This is what I'm thinking of. It's taken five years to come up with this amount, this resource, which is decent. You probably, the hope would be for an investor that it wouldn't take another five years of intensive drilling to come up with a similar amount. That would be the hope.
Right. Yeah, of course. This type of, it is a, you know, narrow high-grade vein deposit type. It takes this type of drilling to define them. It's just the nature of it. When you have this variety of kind of vein orientations, yeah, and with the entire thing essentially being under overburden, drilling is the way to map them out and define them. It's not much different to many of the other orogenic systems in that regard. Yes, I would hope that with another five years, we would be able to, you know, find this amount, if not more. That's very forward-looking, and it would depend, again, on the robustness of the structures that we identify. The hope there is that, you know, the Keats baseline fault is not a one-off situation along the Appleton Fault Zone. We're trying to look for the reoccurrence of structures like those.
Okay. Your interpretation of your understanding of the ore body is greater. Anything significant worth mentioning that you've kind of realized over the last couple of years about the geology that wasn't known before?
I still don't understand. I'm sorry.
In the last two years, how much more, any more changes in the realization of the nature of this ore body of extension potential, etc.?
Sure. Yeah. We've defined a lot of new mineralization in the last two years. I mean, I don't know. Again, you said you haven't followed the story, but how quickly a lot of these discoveries have come online over the last two years from Keats West up to K2 to these depth extents at Golden Dome. Those are all, you know, recent, fairly recent additions. Now we're starting to tag into systems that look similar up at the AFZ peripheral at Dropkick and whatnot. There we're seeing all the same elements. Either it's, you know, a good indication that the systems continue along the Appleton in that way. Even with our deep drilling that we identified there, again, see a mineralization very similar to what we get at surface. The nature of this deposit is finding those high-grade corridors.
We understand those controls, but it does take time to find them and get those drills into the right position to plug into them. That's what we are working to do.
Okay. Great. Thanks, Melissa. Thanks, Keith.
Thank you.
Thanks, Dan.
Our next question comes from the line of Pierre Vaillancourt with Haywood Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. My question hasn't been answered, but I'll just maybe summarize what I've been hearing in the sense that given the, you know, narrow high-grade vein nature of the deposit, the scale, the scalability is somewhat limited, right? I'll assume for now that it's going to be 7,000 tons and maybe somewhere between 100,000 oz, 150,000 oz a year on average for the foreseeable future, right? I mean, there's no, like unless there's some kind of major change in the way you're doing this, that's what it seems like it's going to settle out, right?
Pierre, I clearly didn't relay my message very well. We're using phase one to fund the expansion, right? In a normal world, what we would have done is just built the plant right up front in, you know, what you typically see as coming out of a study. You would have had an average grade and an average production of above 150,000 oz a year. I don't know what the number would end up being, but, you know, somewhere in around 160,000 oz, 165,000 oz for probably about six or seven years. What you do as a company is you go and you explore and you continue to find those high grade, the higher grade material and the lower grade, but you continue to find those deposits that fill in that tail, that fit, you know, keep the higher grades coming in and replacing the lower grade stockpiles in the mill.
No, I actually disagree with what you've just said in that you're always prioritizing the higher grade, and I'll call it medium grade as well because we'll operate with three grade buckets, if you will. The high grade and then the medium grade when you don't have enough high grade. That'll sustain something that's higher than the average that you just said because over 15 years, on the average, it's a 100,000 oz a year producer. I disagree with what you just said.
Okay. I guess just to clarify, are you saying that it's going to be really a matter of grade selectivity and you'll kind of toggle from low grade to high grade to maintain a certain level, or can you actually pick up the throughput, the 7,000 tons? Can that go to 10,000 tons or more conceivably, or is that highly dependent on what Melissa discovers and, you know, is able to?
Actually, if we, I don't know if we can back up on the slides, but go to that production slide, or sorry, yeah, go to the production slide. I forget what slide number it is. Keep going back. Right there. That's the one. If you look at this slide that's on the screen, Pierre, you can see how we're bringing oz forward in year five, six, seven, and eight, and where the underground comes in. I think that where you see that drop there is really where you start filling in the higher grades, which is what we're doing to build the mine from any new discoveries. That would be the approach. You're always maintaining that production level that's at a higher amount.
The 150,000 oz. Now, again, I'll come back to we're actually, you know, over the four-year period of the build, we're taking the highest grade material to do that. What you'd typically have is you'd have a higher grade production profile, and you'd process that lower grade at the back end. In our case, we've got, and I really believe it, and you know, Melissa showed it's wide open on the underground. We've got more work to do there. To have an overall underground mine of 700 tons a day, we just have to find more in each of those ramp systems so that they can support, you know, production for longer periods of time.
Okay. Basically, the idea is to stay at 7,000 tons per day. That's what I understand.
Yes, unless that low-grade stockpile grows too big, then we'll expand.
You won't be constrained. There's a lot of pits, you know. Does that at some point cause a bit of a backup? I mean, that's a lot of pits to manage, or is that all sequentially managed?
It's all sequential. All sequential.
Okay. All right. Thanks, Keith. Congrats.
All right. Thanks, Peter.
Thanks.
That is?
We have a follow-up question from the line of Mike Niehuser with ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead.
Sorry, I'll make this quick, but I was staring at the picture of all you folks standing on top of the quartz vein. I imagine that for the open pit, the ore control of going after the high grade associated with those veins has got to be pretty obvious. I wouldn't say easy, but you know, it should be pretty clear. The question I have is, I remember being out there and the rock around it is not quite so hard and it's somewhat fragile. Yet when you go underground, I know it's very early, but can you comment on how competent and how safe it'll be to be able to do an underground mine when you're mining the hard stuff out first from underneath the, you know, softer, more fragile other rock?
That's really why we decided to go to a cut-and-fill mining method in the PEA as opposed to what was assumed in the resource as long hole. Adding the cost to that, I think our operating cost is $172 a ton for the underground. That's just really a reflection of taking it out in small slices and being able to control the ground around it. That's a typical mining method that you would take it out in small chunks of three by three meter size, and you support the wall and you take it out. You take it out in slices and then backfill what you've taken out and then start over again. It's a higher cost method, but it's more selective, more flexible, and deals with the kind of ground that we will encounter there.
Excellent. Okay, very thoughtful again. Thank you so much for taking my questions.
All right. Thanks, Mike.
That concludes our time for the webinar today. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.