Welcome to this. I think it'll be quite a short presentation. If you just move down, Camilla, through the disclaimer to the introduction. So on Wednesday, we published an RNS, setting out a significant increase in Caledonia's reserves and resources at the Blanket Mine, which was very good news. But the regulatory environment that we occupy is very complex, which means that the full benefit of this news may not be immediately apparent. So I just wanted to use this brief call to put the news in context and to help shareholders interpret this news more accurately. I'm joined today by Craig Harvey, who is our Vice President of Technical Services. He's based in Johannesburg, who was responsible for preparing this resource information.
So just by way of background, Caledonia is subject to the regulatory requirements in the USA, Canada, the U.K., and Zimbabwe. And for the purposes of this particular announcement, it is the interplay between U.S. and Canadian reporting standards that is relevant. And a large proportion of our shareholders are neither American nor Canadian, and therefore may not actually understand all of the requirements and implications that arise from these regulations. So just by way of background, on Wednesday, we published a document which we refer to as the 20-F, which is effectively the U.S. SEC annual report, and it contains an absolutely vast amount of information relating to Caledonia.
Its performance, its governance, but particularly as part of the 20-F, we're also required to publish information about the resource base at all of the properties that we own, and as at 31st December 2023. So that includes Blanket. It includes Bilboes, which we acquired in January 2023, so this will be our first disclosure relating to Bilboes as an owned vehicle. We would've been obliged to put something about Maligreen, but because nothing's happened at Maligreen in the course of 2023, nothing's changed, and therefore, there's no need to put out any further information on that. Now, the information we publish about our properties must satisfy the requirements of the USA and Canada, and they're quite divergent.
They don't sort of dovetail at all neatly. So under the U.S. regulations, mineral resources are shown excluding mineral reserves, where in Canada they're shown including mineral reserves. Under the U.S. regulations, mineral reserves and resources are shown on an attributable basis, so we own 64% of Blanket, whereas under Canadian rules, they're shown on a 100% basis. But most importantly, for interpreting this information, we've got to understand that we are not allowed to add together, measured and indicated information on the one hand, and inferred on the other hand, so we show both those two categories separately. Now, that's not too difficult when it just comes to, you know, looking at the overall resource endowment. It's quite simple to add together, M&I ounces and inferred ounces and get to the right answer.
But it's a serious impediment to showing investors an accurate picture of the future economic value of Blanket, in that we can't show the production profile, which shows for a particular year, typically, say, 2024, the production that arises from measured and indicated, and the production that arises from inferred. We'll come back to that in more detail later, but that in particular is the primary thing that I want shareholders to understand. Also, let's touch on Bilboes. The Form 20-F requires us to publish a resource statement for Bilboes. Our work to assess the Bilboes project is not yet complete, and in the Form 20-F reflecting the work that we've done to date.
And I expect our work to be in a form that can be published, hopefully by the end of this month, by the end of May. So let's be clear, by way of background, we bought Bilboes as a large sulfide resource with a very small oxide resource on the side. We bought it for the sulfides, not the oxides. For the purposes of the 20-F disclosure that we just published, we've updated the technical work that was prepared by the vendors, and we've updated that to reflect the depletion of the oxide resource that arose from our brief foray into oxide mining, and to reflect the effect of the controlled drilling we did on the remainder of the oxides.
And that's resulted, as set out on this page here, in a small drop in the resource base of about 3% on resources, 5% on reserves, and that relate to the oxides. There's been absolutely no change at all in respect to the sulfides. But I would, I'd encourage you to just sort of pause before you delve into the 200-odd page report in respect of Bilboes, because that will be superseded in very short order by another document, which is currently being prepared. Work that we've done over the intervening period. Okay? So can we just move on? So that's the background. Can we just move on to the summary? So what you see here is a table which shows the reserves, measured and indicated resources, inferred under the two reporting codes.
So the middle column is S-K 1300, which is the U.S. requirement. The right-hand column is the Canadian requirement, and you can see that the revised mineral reserves are, on an attributable basis, 519,000 ounces under the U.S. code, 812 under the Canadian code, and that reflects the doubling. 111% increase, 106% increase from what was there previously. The next line shows that measured and indicated resources has increased by 50% under the U.S. code, 63% under the Canadian code, and inferred has gone up by a smaller amount, 26% under both codes.
I would point out that the work, the exploration work we've been doing over the course of the last year or so, was focused on converting existing inferred resources to a higher level of confidence. So we weren't actually going out with a view to increasing the inferred resource at all, but the fact it did increase is very good news. So I think the following page has set out more detail on each one of those. So I'll ask Craig, first of all, to talk about the exploration program that we've been doing over the last sort of 15, 16 months or so, and then to take you through the tables in so far as they relate to, you know, the more detailed data in respect of each of the codes.
So, Craig, can I hand over to you?
Thanks. Thanks, Mark. Good afternoon or good morning to everybody, wherever you are. So just on the exploration program, on the drilling that's taken place at Blanket, the first line there says, we started drilling. So a bit of history was that while central shaft was busy being sunk, so, the last three or four years, there was a big hiatus in the amount of drilling that could actually take place. And this was simply due to the impact of the shaft sinking activities. So the last 18 months has seen an uptick in the deep drilling, which we refer to as the deep drilling program. There were just over 13,000 meters drilled from approximately 45-50 drills. We've published those results on our website on those dates that you can see there in July and January.
At the same time, our run-of-mine drilling has also picked up, our underground development has picked up. So all of the conversions or all of the upticks in the mineral resources and mineral reserves that you see is predominantly from the deep hole exploration drilling. A lot of it, well, a fair portion of it is from run-of-mine drilling and our improved development rates that we're actually getting. The drilling is focused mainly on the Eroica and the Blanket ore bodies, and the Blanket ore bodies is the Basal Quartz Reef. It's the Blanket one through to six ore bodies as well. And these have been focused on the areas, if I talk in terms of levels, it's from about 26 level down to 34 level. 34 level is the 1,110 meters below surface.
That is the, that is the deepest access directly to central shaft. So we're currently developing on the 34 level. We're about halfway to Eroica at the moment. Below 34 level, only on the Blanket side, there's a decline going down to 38 level. So all of these resources that we have drilled now on this, on this deep drilling, is really everything that is currently in our infrastructure plans. We, as I say, we're on 34 level, developing to Eroica. On the decline, we're just about to hit 36 level. So all of the resources that are reported here are obtainable with our current shaft and mine infrastructure.
We do want to have a look at rejigging our exploration program, but I mean, as Mark has said, on our reserves only, proven and probable, which is a conversion of measured and indicated. We have a 10-year life of mine plan, and that 10-year life of mine plan, as per the requirements of all of the various reporting codes, is scheduled, designed, it's basically down on paper. That is the plan that we are gonna be following for the next 10, you know, for the next 10 years. Part of the reason why this has all also been able to happen is Caledonia has invested heavily in Blanket in the past 3 years, in upgrading and updating their mineral resource management system.
So in the past, so it's probably about five years ago, Blanket was still very much a manual type of mine. Lots of paper plans, lots of spotted colorful plans with various grades on. And that's all fine for a small mine, but once you start upping production as Blanket has, you need to stay on top of what your drilling results are, what it's doing to your resource, to your ore, to your ore body, and you've got to be able to plan it out and schedule that out. Just to give you an idea, there are 43 discrete individual domains at Blanket, of which we can be mining any of those 43 at any time. But we need, you know, but we need all of this, software to be in. So we've gone with the Deswik suite of mining software.
It's very well known across the industry, and we use it currently for our survey sampling and geology controls. We're using Datamine Studio. We just implemented at the beginning of the year or halfway through last year for our mineral resource estimation. And the budget was approximately $3 million. We're about $2.1 million in actual spend into this process at the moment. There's been lots of training that's been taking place, because the intention is to have it on mine, the people on mine are trained on it. The people that know the ore body the best or the geologists on mine, it's not me, and so we need to give them those skills. So if we can move on to the next one.
Well, just before, just to interrupt. One of the other advantages of the introduction of the software that Craig's mentioned is that it allows us to be much more nimble, much more fleet of foot when it comes to adjusting our, either mine planning or our capital development. As our life continues and we get sort of a better understanding of what's on the ground, it has, in a couple of occasions, allowed us to very quickly reconfigure our capital plans to make it more effective and cheaper. So it just gives us much more day-to-day flexibility. Sorry to interrupt. Carry on.
No, 100%, Mark. So on this table, I mean, there's lots of numbers. This is the S-K classification, so this is for reporting on the SEC or in the USA. And we can basically see there that our, you know, that our grade on our measured has gone up by about 20%. I've got a bit more detail on that, so. Oh, sorry, our, yeah, our ounces have gone up by 75. The tonnage has gone up by about 40, and the grade has gone up by about 20. On the indicated side, remember that this is now 64% attributable. It's exclusive of mineral reserves and so forth. But in general, tonnes are up, and grade, and grade is up. That all feeds into everything.
You'll see on the, in inferred, we're slightly down on the, on the tonnage, and that is and the grade has gone up. The drilling that we did, the last holes, the deepest holes that we've got, I mean, the grades are really good, and that has helped to kick up the inferred grades. If you can go on to the next one. It should be the reserve estimate. Yeah. So on this one, again, it's 64%, so it's not 100%. It's very much in line with what it has always been. The big difference here, and you can see it very clearly on the NI estimates, the big difference here is that the measured has gone up slightly, and if you understand what the measured is, it's your most accurate, most confident level, and it's typically around your development areas.
Now, as I said, the development has picked up, so we've been doing a bit more drilling. We've been doing a lot of on reef or in ore development. So there's been a slight uptick, but it's on the probable reserves that we actually get the biggest increase. You can see there that the tonnes 173% up, and that is driven purely by the long hole drilling. So as we have, can I say, peppered the areas below where we were mining, you know, the confidence in those grades and the confidence in the geological continuity of the ore body has increased significantly. And that is the big driver of this resource and reserves uptick. If you can go on to the next one.
And as I was saying there, so if you have a look at the measured from the first set of numbers is 22. The last set of numbers is as of now-
Sorry, Craig, just to make it clear, this is now on the Canadian reporting, so this is on a 100% basis.
Yeah, it's on a 100% basis, and it's inclusive of the mineral reserve as well. So what you can see there is that on the measured, on a tonnage basis, we've increased our tonnage by about 20%, the grade by about 10%. On the indicated again, however, the tonnage is up by 60%, and the grades are good, and the grades have come up by about 8%, by about 18%. On the inferred, as I was saying a bit earlier, that's all about the stats and the geological continuity. So the inferred tonnage has gone down slightly, and that is also now because we're not including anything below 34 level on the Eroica side, and we do have drill holes that are below that.
The big uptick, and it's evidenced in all of the drilling results that we've put out, is almost a 30% increase in grade. And it's not, you know, it's not overboard. It was about two. now on, it's now about three point seven. And it's born out of the facts of the drilling that we've done. And so all of this, and so all of this, Mark, shall I mention life of mine, or is it on the next one?
No, we'll, we'll come on to mine. We'll come on to life of mine, life of mine in a minute.
Yeah.
Okay, but I mean, I wouldn't underestimate the effect on the economics, project economics of, you know, of the increase in grade. I mean, it stands to reason if each ton that you're moving, it costs you $85-$90 a ton to move it, and it's got sort of 25% more gold in it, you know, it makes easy money. Then typically, that then flows through into marginally higher recoveries as well.
And I think the other thing sorry, I forgot to mention, when you were the upgrade in the systems has significantly improved the granularity of our understanding of the ore bodies, which again, makes it much easier to plan our mining activities in a more sophisticated way, so that we've got a better sense as we go mining as to what we're going to expect. Sometimes we've been surprised on the downside. More often, we've been surprised on the upside, and, you know, it's just nice to have a more accurate feel of, you know, a more accurate handle as to what we're gonna go mining. Is that the end? Is the next slide, just move on?
Yeah.
Right. So this frankly is where it all gets a bit disappointing, really. What you've got here is a graph, which is figure 50 from the technical report. And that shows the green bit is the tons, the measured tons, annual production. The yellow bit is the tons that we get from indicated, and then the black dotted line shows the grade. And you can see that looking at 2024, this tells us that we're gonna be doing about 420,000 tons of measured, another nearly about 180,000 tons of indicated.
On that basis, you know, on that basis, we'll be moving 600,000 tons of ore at a grade of whatever it is, a grade of sort of three and a bit, nearly, nearly three, yeah, three and a half. But in reality, every day, every day we go mining inferred resource. And so in 2024, the actual, the actual production will be closer to 800,000 ounces of, eight hundred, eight hundred tons, sorry, eight hundred, 800,000 tons of ore, you know, giving a much higher sort of total number of ounce production. To 2025, the gap is, is still there. It's slightly smaller. And so the gap is a bit smaller, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028.
But then 2029 onwards, there's a big gap in that we again, we're expecting to produce, to mine about 800,000 tons a year. And clearly, because we're only able to show a life of mine that covers Measured and Indicated, this thing falls off a cliff in 2034, whereas in reality, we know that we'll be continuing mining until 2041.
To compound the frustration, if you look at note 18 to the annual financial statements, right at the back of the annual financial statements, page 56, you will see that in, as part of our discussion of impairment, at Blanket, we didn't impair Blanket because we were working on management estimates for a life of mine out to 2041, with production anything between 77,800 ounces to 81,400 ounces a year at a grade of 3.1 to 3.3 grams a ton. Now, all that still stays the same, except that actually, based on the information that we just published earlier on this week, that grade isn't sort of 3.1 to 3.3, it's actually quite a bit higher.
So if you put all of that together, that means that if you base an evaluation of the mine, based on what you can see here in this graph, you're missing about 800,000 ounces of gold produced in terms of what you see here, 2024 to 2034, and then another 600,000 ounces from 2035 to 2041. And I think that's the message that we are trying to get across, is that you know, whilst this is great news, you know, higher confidence levels, you know, more ounces, higher grade. The economic analysis that we're obliged to make is doesn't tell the whole story.
I think there's a couple other things I'd mention as well, is that, when I was talking about our disclosure obligations under the, under the 20-F, we don't have a—we would definitely talk about Motapa. We don't disclose anything from Motapa because Motapa doesn't have a resource. We are actually just about to start, drilling at Motapa, but the reason there's nothing in Motapa there's nothing in the 20-F about Motapa is because, you know, there is no resource at this stage. So look, I think that's all we've got to say. In conclusion, I'd say that the, the news is unequivocally good. It underpins the long-term, opportunity for Blanket to continue producing profitably out to 2041 and beyond.
And the slightly higher grade, I think, provides a what I'd call a following wind to the economics of the project. So. And the other thing, the other question I would actually like, Craig, if you can sometime dig it out, is maybe try and identify what the discovery cost per ounce is. You know, clearly, we've got the increased ounces. How much do we spend to get there? I'd just like to know how cheap that is. So look, that's all I've got to say. We can open it to questions. I can see one question trying to nudge me to increase production guidance for 2025. I think typically, we would do that in the context of our quarterly reporting, so this information wasn't quite available when we published our quarter one, well, quarter one numbers.
But we will maybe reconsider that when we publish quarter two. But it would be, it would be nice if we feel comfortable to, you know, to nudge up production guidance going forwards for a bit. Can we hold this open for a few questions, if anyone's got any more questions? Camilla, can you do that?
Yep. If anyone has any questions, then please just raise your hand. Hold on a second. There's another-
There's one from Euan?
Uh, yep.
Are we gonna put out grade? Oh, so this, are you gonna put out grade and tonnage guidance out, or just- No, the guidance we put out for the sort of a 12-month view is ounces and online cost and all-in sustaining cost. We don't break that down into grades and tons. But clearly, this technical report effectively is company guidance anyway. So you know, if you're wanting to build a model for the business, you should start with a technical report other than the fact that as I've just pointed out, it's not very helpful, because it doesn't include the inferred. Another question: Would per ton costs change significantly? Yes, they would. Yes, they would, clearly.
So the ton, that would be Yes, they would. And I think you need to engage with Craig and Maurice and Chester to get a view on that. But in terms of public disclosures, we disclose what we can.
Maybe what I can say, Mark, is that this graph that is still on the screen, the Blanket plant capacity is just shy of 850,000 tons per year. All right? And I mean, clearly, we are filling the plant.
Yeah.
So you can do your own numbers.
Yeah. So the constraint on the business at the moment, I guess, is mining. It's rock broken, rock trammed. It's all broken or trammed and all hoisted. So the plant has got some surplus capacity. Well, having said that, you know, I don't feel particularly comfortable with the It would be nice to build up a stockpile on surface, I guess. Any further questions? No. Okay. Well, look, as I say, that's. It's unequivocally good news, so just frustrating that we can't. We feel that we've got both hands tied behind our back in terms of accurately painting the picture of where it takes us. But there's a detailed conversation about CapEx. I'm not gonna get into a conversation about CapEx.
We'll come back to that later. Okay, I think we'll draw stumps there. Thank you very much.