Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where in the world you're signing in from today. A note to the speakers: every continent is well represented in our audience, except Antarctica. If somebody does want to log in from one of those science stations, that would be cool. I am thrilled to be joined today by the CEO of Contango Ore, Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse, and the CEO of Dolly Varden Silver, Shawn Khunkhun. Gentlemen, how are you today?
Doing good.
Doing very, very good. Thanks for having us, Romeo.
Oh, great. And we're here to chat, obviously, about this morning's big news: the two companies are intending to merge. I know it's a very big crowd in the audience today, and I'd like to thank everybody for joining, but I also want to let you guys know how today's going to work. First, Rick and Shawn are going to go over a deck outlining the proposed merger. Then I've got some questions for them. Then we have a couple of select questions from analysts who are joining us today. But then this is an open forum. So there's a chat button on the bottom right of the screen where you can ask questions at any point during today's event. I'll try to get to as many as I can, and I will be combining questions that are similar.
So if you don't get yours asked exactly, it might be covered by another one that's phrased similarly. We've got 75 minutes for today's event, but if we do run out of time and I can't get to your question, I'm going to make sure the Contango and Dolly teams still get them so that they're able to get back to you, particularly on people's really specific questions that are portfolio. Last piece of housekeeping: today's event is being recorded and will be available for replay in the early afternoon. But that is more than enough out of me. I'd love to get into the protein of today's event. So, Rick and Shawn, I'll let you take it away.
Romeo, thanks very much, and thanks for hosting this event. My name is Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse. I'm the President and CEO of Contango. We are very excited to be here and very excited to talk about this proposed combination. Just because Shawn's shareholders may not know me and Contango's shareholders may not know Shawn, we thought we'd start with just a brief introduction of ourselves. I'm an exploration geologist by background. I started a company. I used to be vice president of exploration for Placer Dome, worked for a number of the old established companies like Anaconda and Freeport. But in the turn of the century, in about 1997, I decided to start up my own firm of company called NovaGold and come back to Alaska and found a big gold deposit called Donlin.
We partnered that with Barrick on a 50/50 basis and helped develop that project to where it is now. I think it's about a $6 billion company. And the resources haven't changed, which the gold price has obviously gone up a lot since that time. But out of NovaGold, we also created a number of other companies, including Trilogy Metals. We developed the Ambler District. We had a company in Montana that developed the Black Butte Project that was eventually bought by Sandfire. And then we created a Alexco in the Yukon. That was spun out of NovaGold as well. And that was developed the high-grade silver district there at Keno Hill. So we certainly like silver as a commodity. And that was eventually sold to Hecla. So we've had a track record of success of finding high-grade projects and developing them.
We know exploration, we know acquisitions, and all the way through to production. We certainly have had, recently, a focus in Alaska, but I've worked pretty much everywhere in the world. I know in Alaska, we're kind of the go-to story. If you have a project in Alaska, we certainly know about it. If something new comes up, we're certainly going to get the call. I think some people would say we have a nose for ore, and I think that's a good thing to be associated with. I'll wrap that up. Shawn, you want to introduce yourself to the crowd?
Yeah, thank you, Rick. And I just want to say it's an absolute honor to be sharing the stage with you here. And I look forward to working with you. You referenced a couple of companies here, just focusing on NovaGold, which is a $6 billion market cap. I'm really excited to help build this company with you here. For myself, and I just want to start off by saying we executed this definitive agreement on December 7th. And for me, that was a tribute to my father, which is a segue into gold and silver and precious metals that have been a part of my life since I was a child. And I professionally worked in the mining industry, building gold mining companies for the last 22 years. Starting in 2004, I got behind a geologist like Rick, and we built a company called San Gold.
We bought a mine off of Harmony. They were looking to exit Canada. And we took a $7.5 million purchase. And in six and a half years, the company was valued at $1.4 billion. My role in supporting that geologist was I brought him $500 million of capital to execute the drilling, the development, and ultimately, we got into production, 85,000 ounces a year in 2011. And so over the course of the last 10 years, I've been working with scientists like Rob McLeod and successful mining entrepreneurs like Frank Giustra. And I've brought about $3 billion of capital to companies like Dolly Varden. Specifically at Dolly Varden, I came in and took over as CEO in 2020. The company at the time was valued at CAD 20 million.
Through three pillars, capital, science, and acquisitions, Dolly Varden, through making discoveries, accretive acquisitions, and bringing in the right capital from shareholders like Hecla Mining, Eric Sprott, and Fidelity, we've grown to the market cap we are today. I'm really excited about explaining why Rick and I are looking to complete a $1 billion merger. Maybe with that, Romeo, we can move on to the next slide. I think this is the key to this presentation. It's the deal rationale. I'll talk about the first four points, starting with the geographic consistency of the asset portfolio. This is really, really important. We know the north. We've got high-grade projects. They're silver, they're gold.
Most importantly, through the JV with Kinross, we have a well-funded partnership through the Manh Choh operation that is going to fund the pipeline of development assets that we have with Johnson Tract, with Lucky Shot, with our Kitsault Valley. One thing I want to highlight here, and this is so important. It's been a theme throughout my career, which is great. Grade works in all environments. Grade is king. We've got a portfolio here in gold terms that's + 10 grams throughout the portfolio. In silver terms, it's + 300 grams. So it's a high-grade project. These are high-grade properties. These are tier one jurisdictions. That allows for the DSO model that Contango has run efficiently. This model is going to allow us, for low CapEx and for shorter permitting times, to get these projects into production for lower cost and sooner. Rick, I'll turn it over to you.
Yeah, so obviously, being an exploration geologist, I'm always excited to talk about exploration. And shareholders with the merged company will be exposed to four mineral districts, not just individual deposits, but whole entire districts. So at Manh Choh, we have a huge tract of private land that's owned by the Tetlin tribe. It is essentially the Tok District. And our Lucky Shot project is in the middle of the Willow District, a very strong historic gold producer, mostly placer, but also some hard rock at Lucky Shot and other small mines there. So those are the, and at Johnson Tract, obviously, that's a whole district. Again, it's private land owned by the Alaska Native tribe. And we've found that private land is far easier to be permitting things on in the United States than federal land. So we tend to focus on working on private land and state land.
Of course, the Kitsault project and the sizeable land position there in the corner of the Golden Triangle gives us a good beachhead, good foothold in that wonderful exploration region. It's not just a district. It's a whole entire area. So when you add these together, that's over 500,000 hectares of prime real estate to explore in a tier one jurisdiction, as Shawn's described. I don't think there's another company that has that sort of portfolio. When you look at market capitalization and institutional shareholder base and the listings, look, you've got an $800 million market cap, over CAD 1 billion on a combined basis. We trade about over $5 million worth of stock a day. So there's great liquidity with the listings on the NYSE American. We're anticipating when this is closed to have applied to the TSX main board.
That's a move-up for Dolly shareholders to the main board. We're in a bunch of indices. We're part of the Russell 2000, the GDXJ, and Dolly's part of the Silver Miners ETF. You're getting good exposure to all of those. We've got nine research analysts that cover the story. I'm sure a number of them are on the call today. It's a strong shareholder base with guys like Eric Sprott and Hecla, all of whom have signed support agreements in favor of this transaction. We're starting from a very strong footing and looking forward to where we can take this company from here. Romeo, let's go on to the next slide. Just talking about the transaction details, I won't go through this in all the excruciating detail, but it is a true merger of equals.
Our objective is for both sets of shareholders to share equally in the success of the company going forward. For various reasons of jurisdiction and taxation, Contango will be the surviving entity on a 50/50 basis. Dolly Varden shareholders will be receiving 0.1652 shares in exchange for Contango. That's roughly six shares of Dolly Varden equals one share of Contango. Again, that creates an $800 million U.S. company, over a billion-dollar Canadian. And both sets of shareholders will be voting on the transaction. In terms of the company going forward, I will be the CEO of the resulting company. Shawn will be serving as a very active president, and Mike Clark will be our CFO. Clynton Nauman, who is currently a director of Contango, will become Chair. And we have a slide on the rest of the makeup of the boards that I'll save for then. Our top high-net-worth shareholders and Dolly Varden's top shareholders, which coincidentally equal 22% of our shareholders on both sides, have shown support for the arrangement. We expect to close the transaction in Q1, and we'll be continuing to trade under the symbol CTGO on the New York and TSX exchanges upon closing. That's what we anticipate.
Just one last point, just on the voter support agreements. It is interesting that we both had 22% with signing the voter support agreements. We also had around an additional 13% on each company that, for whatever structural reason, could not sign the support agreement, but have indicated that they're going to be voting in favor of the transaction. So we're coming into this in a really, really strong place, considering the small amount of shareholders we will cross before the transaction daylighted this morning. So really heading into the vote with a third support, a very, very strong indication of how this is truly a one plus one. And I like to say to Rick, one plus one doesn't equal three or four. It equals 11 in this case. I really think there's a true synergy here.
And that goes into a nice segue into the complementary high-grade asset portfolio. We're not looking to bring assets from Africa and Australia in different time zones and currencies and languages. We are essentially in the same district. And this is a tier one district. And that's one thing that's differentiated Dolly from its peers in the past. And it's something that's staying consistent throughout this merger. We've got a tier one, safe, stable mining district where Rick and the Contango team has become the dominant Alaska entity. If there is an opportunity that comes up in Alaska, it goes to Rick. Simultaneously, through our acquisitions, through our discovery, and through our access to capital, Dolly Varden has become that dominant player in the Golden Triangle.
So we've been able to, when groups are looking to divest projects or to come into a business combination, they come to Dolly because of our strong shareholders, because of our balance sheet. So we've got a complementary asset base. There's synergies in these assets on an equivalent basis. If we looked at this through a gold lens, we've got roughly 3 million ounces of gold equivalent under the pro forma. If we were to express that through a silver equivalent lens, we're looking at about a $225 million silver equivalent. And again, I think what really stands out, in addition to the north, where we have a competitive advantage, where we have these exceptionally high-grade deposits. And again, through a gold equivalent, there are deposits here that are + 10-gram gold. And on a silver basis, again, the 300-gram silver.
The big thing for me is the increased scale here is significant. What I've always been looking to build here was a pipeline. If I think back to how we started Dolly Varden, why we got behind Dolly, it was at a time in the industry where the majors were not investing in exploration and development. By securing these four projects in one entity, and we've got these, and with the cash flow at Manh Choh, we have the ability, we are well funded to systematically develop and continue to grow and explore. If we can move on.
Can I just jump in here with, let's go back to that slide, Romeo. I think one of the things that Contango has done a little differently is apply this DSO model or this DSO approach. And as Shawn says, we've got three million ounces of gold or 225 million ounces of silver. And they're high-grade ounces. So they can afford the transportation to an existing mill facility. We've demonstrated that model works at Manh Choh. And that's a trucking scenario where I really, and we can see the same development plan for our Lucky Shot project. But where I really see the perfect synergies here between our two companies is with respect to Johnson Tract and Kitsault. Both are on the water. Both ores are high-grade. One has more silver. I like silver. I think it's a great metal. We would welcome the exposure to silver in Contango.
We don't have much silver in Contango. So I think that's a great addition for Contango shareholders to get exposure to silver. The high-grade nature allows both ores as direct shipping ores, run of mine. So you're just mining these things, putting them in a box and transporting them, in this case with a barge since you're close to the water, to an existing mill facility. Now, we're still working on where that is. We've got a couple of different options to look at. And Shawn and I'll be working together to determine which is the best option. But rest assured that that's one of the next key steps that we'll be working towards. And again, high-grade. We're already starting with a sizable portfolio. We think both, for the reasons I mentioned earlier, the district scale of exploration potential for all four of these main deposits just says that the future will be successful at exploring. We've been successful to date, and so we don't plan to change that approach, and yeah, so I'm super excited to see this merger come together.
And just to pull on that thread a little bit here, Rick, you may not have much silver, right? And Dolly Varden doesn't have any production. And I think that's the key attribute. Contango is buying silver, and Dolly is buying production. And I think that's one of the key highlights here.
Yeah, good point. So there's a lot to go over in this slide. So I'll keep it high level. But it's a straightforward plan, as Shawn just mentioned, where Manh Choh's in production is generating a lot of free cash flow. Later this next year, we'll be out from underneath the hedges. So just a huge amount of cash flow coming from Manh Choh. And that's going to allow us to advance, develop these three assets, Lucky Shot, Johnson Tract, and Kitsault. And when you look in the timeline down below, they actually fit together very well. The PEA that we see for right now, we have planned a PEA for Kitsault next year. And that'll look at what the best way to approach this project from a DSO standpoint is. Obviously, we'll be advancing Lucky Shot. The drilling program is underway as we speak.
We've got about an 18,000-meter program underway there. And that's basically to, we know where the vein is at Lucky Shot. We just need to do, it's a mesothermal vein. We just need to do a lot of drilling to determine where the gold occurs along that vein in a minable form. It's very detailed drilling. So that's underway. In 2027, we'll have a feasibility study and be able to execute a development plan at that point. With respect to Johnson Tract, as you saw, we just were uplisted to the FAST-41 or included in the FAST-41 program. We think that's going to be a great way to sort of get the project through the permitting process over the next several years. Meanwhile, next year, we do start building a road and getting a connection between the camp and the proposed portal site.
So lots of activity going on there. And then meanwhile, at Kitsault, of course, I think we've got about a 50,000-meter program planned there. And I think there'll probably be some road. There's already some roads there that we can enhance and improve the access to some of the existing mines. And I'll touch on that a bit later. What we used to say at Contango was we had a great five-year plan. And what I can say now is we have a great 20-year plan. And that's a game changer for, I think, for both companies. You can see with the lower half of that slide, all of the catalysts that are there. It's a catalyst-rich news flow environment. With lots of drilling, and drilling always creates excitement in the market because especially when you're drilling high-grade intersections like Kitsault has demonstrated and like Lucky Shot has demonstrated. Very exciting combined company here.
Yeah. And Rick, it's a really good point I want to emphasize to the Dolly Varden shareholder. Right now, you own a company that's generating news and drilling essentially six months out of the year. What's exciting is when I think about the combined portfolio, we're envisioning at least 70,000 meters of drilling. And with the Johnson Tract drill program that is currently underway and the results those are going to be producing, there isn't going to be a season where it's not news-rich. And so that's an important point. Now, there is an intangible here that I want to emphasize that may not show up in this document. And that's team. And what that means for Dolly Varden shareholders is the Contango team that have successfully implemented the DSO strategy. Dolly shareholders have been coming to me and asking me, "Shawn, you're making all these wonderful discoveries.
You're getting all this ground. You're enhancing the mineral inventory. But when are you going to make the move from explorer to developer and into production?" And we did not have that skill set in the company. And by working with the Contango team who are DSO experts, we can now systematically take these discoveries and implement a development strategy and work towards getting into production. Now, there's a second part of that equation. We have a phenomenal team of explorationists that came into a rich 100-year-old mining camp. And the new ideas, whether it was finding the Jurassic Age Hazelton formation below the sediment cover, whether it was finding mineralization on the other side of the Central Valley Fault, the work that our exploration team has done, I'm really excited about them going into Alaska, going into Lucky Shot, looking at the whole portfolio and bringing that discovery-oriented.
What I've experienced in 22 years in this industry is having that fresh set of eyes. That new set of eyes on a project has often yielded breakthroughs, and so I think it's really complementary from a team standpoint. I think that Rick and I also share that same chemistry, and so you'll see it not only operationally. You'll see it at the board level. When we thought about bringing the two boards together, we handpicked and we thought very thoughtfully of a skills and experience matrix. Romeo, we can go into the next slide where we'll look at capital markets. I think this was a really big driving factor. We're in a market today where size matters. When I first got into this industry compared to today, we're in an environment today where 60% of money is passive. That's an industry.
That's at a time where if you're in the GDXJ, if you're in the SILJ, it's a have-and-have-not market. And with the combination, we are anticipating $9 million a day of liquidity. Rick talked about the nine rating opportunity. And what's really interesting, if you look at the shareholders here, there is zero cross-pollination. I don't know how we've managed to do this, but somehow there is this perfect blend of now Franklin and Fidelity and BlackRock and Eric Sprott. So it is just a tremendous mix. And there's just tremendous synergies from the standpoint of the analyst coverage, the ETF inclusion. We were running some scenarios over the weekend where we could see as much as $50 million of buying come in just from the ETFs. And so that's something that is going to benefit shareholders. It's going to increase liquidity. It's going to give us a currency to continue to go out and do more accretive deals. So that enhanced capital markets profile is something to seriously consider and a strong aspect of this deal. I'll turn it over to Rick.
Yeah. Let's go on to the next slide, Romeo. So I think that this slide kind of captures all the things that Shawn was just mentioning about the true synergies between the two companies. And the fact that our shareholder base is hardly at any overlap at all is, again, that's net accretive, right, to the combined company. So this slide really kind of captures where we want to take the company. You see Hecla in the middle of it and Contango, Dolly Varden right above that. We are going to be that perfect blend of gold and silver. I think once the 200,000 meters of drilling done at Kitsault is incorporated into an updated resource for which we'd expect to get in the first half of next year, I think we're going to be right around that 50/50 mark.
As we've talked about, Dolly's the go-to story in that part of the Golden Triangle. Contango's the go-to story for things in Alaska, new opportunities in Alaska, so we certainly see this as a platform to continue to build on, focused on high-grade and focused on implementing the DSO model, and again, I keep talking about the exploration upside of these districts. Shawn mentioned the exploration team at Dolly, and what I really look forward to is sort of integrating these two teams and the cross-pollination that happens when you get geologists in a room thinking about a new project that they haven't had the opportunity to take a look at yet, so I'm very excited about that, and again, I think this slide really captures where we want to take the combined company.
Yeah. And so, Rick, when I started doing my DD on Contango, I saw a company that was producing 60,000 ounces a year of gold that with Lucky Shot coming online, that would go to 90,000, that would go to 110,000. But there was a path with Johnson Tract to 200,000 ounces. So it's 60,000 ounces now, it's 200,000 ounces. What the Kitsault Valley brings is an opportunity to enhance that pathway to 200,000 ounces of gold production to include 6 million ounces of silver equivalent production from the Kitsault Valley. So when I look ahead at our portfolio, I see a 6 million ounce a year silver producer with 200,000 ounces of gold production, which makes the company, considering that all of that production is going to be Northwest BC, Alaska, the only other company that's giving investors exposure to safe jurisdiction, high-grade silver and gold production is Hecla.
And so I said it earlier, this is a deal where Contango shareholders are getting exposure to the best performing asset class this year, which is silver, right? And Dolly Varden shareholders are getting exposure to cash flow. They're getting exposure to a serially successful mining entrepreneur in Rick and his team. And it really puts the company in a place where it's going to stand out against all other companies, as this highlights. We can go on to the next slide, Romeo.
I just want to add one other thing on that last slide. This company's really well financed, this combined company. We've got well over $100 million USD in cash. And Manh Choh is generating $100 million of free cash flow a year on average for the life of mine at Manh Choh. So it's just a solid company.
Rick, we're already starting to read each other's minds. I was actually going to lead with that statement, so I'm glad that you mentioned it because I'd forgotten. This slide here, it's funny because it surprised me when I looked at this. And this is highlighting 2024, 2025, but we could have created this slide. It would have been too busy, but it could have showed 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. The numbers speak for themselves. Dolly Varden, third best intercept from a grade thickness standpoint, third best in 2024, second best in 2025. Johnson Tract, I've been talking to my shareholders that a good intercept is 300 gram meter gold.
That's a 2,000 gram meter gold hit at Johnson Tract. So what we have here is we've got two portfolios that have generated some of the top 10 drill results consistently year after year after year. The goal with the 70,000 meters of drilling that's planned is we're going to be here in 2026. And so again, the numbers speak for themselves. We've got freakishly high-grade systems that also have the width. And it's really, I've been around this business for 22 years. I haven't seen a portfolio put together like this. So I think with that, we can probably go on to the next slide, Romeo.
The combined company, I think we've talked a little bit about this, but just to go into a bit more detail, myself, I'll serve as the CEO. I'll be a director as well. Shawn will be president and also director. Mike Clark, the CFO of Contango, will continue as the CFO of the combined company. Clynton Nauman will become the chair of the combined company. I've known Clint for a lot of years. Clint ran the Keno Hill operation and Alexco. He ran Alexco and Keno Hill operation. So he knows the silver market very well. Brad Juneau, who's our current chairman, will stay on as a director. He's got a strong background in resource development and operations, mostly on the oil and gas side. But he is the co-founder of Contango.
He's the one who recognized that this was a great opportunity for a bunch of oil investors to get involved with back when they made the original discovery. So I'm glad to see him staying on as a director. Mike Cinnaman will remain as a director. Mike's the CFO of B2Gold. Strong background in finance and capital markets. Tim Clark, he spent 23 years in capital markets, including with BMO and Barclays. He's currently CEO of the Quebec-based gold developer, Fury Gold. Darren Devine, we worked with him on getting this transaction done. Worked closely with him getting this transaction done. Former securities lawyer, strong background in capital markets as well, including being co-founder of a very successful K92 mining operation. So we've got a very strong and independent board. And I think this group will serve shareholders very, very well.
And just the only point I'll add here, Rick, is Fury is a 12% shareholder of Dolly. They're wholly supportive of this deal. They have signed a voting support agreement. They are voting in favor of the transaction. And they've been just a great partner. It was four years ago on December 6th that we acquired Homestake from Fury. And that was a step change deal for Dolly Varden that led us on this path. And here we are four years later with another transformational deal. So I just wanted to highlight Fury's ownership. Tim is the CEO of Fury and their support for this transaction as a 12% shareholder.
So now we'd like to spend a bit of time talking about the portfolios of each company. And we're kind of doing this for the benefit of the other company shareholders. So I'll start with going through our portfolio in Alaska. So this starts with the Manh Choh Mine. You can see where it's located. It's on private land owned by an Alaska Native tribe. We've had a strong and close working relationship with the tribe for many years now. This is the joint venture with Kinross as a 70% partner and the manager and operator of the Manh Choh Mine. Ore, this again is the DSO model or run-of-mine ore is loaded in the trucks and transported to the mill at Fort Knox.
We came to that arrangement because Fort Knox had ample excess capacity at the mill to accommodate processing the Manh Choh ore, which is high grade. The feasibility grade was close to 8 grams per ton. It is mostly gold. There is a little bit of silver there, but it's about a one-to-one ratio. So the project was started operation in July, started producing gold in July of last year, and we're just probably wrapping up our last quarter of production here. Ore is processed through the Fort Knox Mill on a campaign or batch process. Basically, the middle month of every quarter, we run about 200,000 tons of ore through the Fort Knox Mill, ore from Manh Choh through the mill. We're scheduled to produce about 60,000 ounces of gold a year for the life of mine, which goes out till 2029, 2030.
And we're generating over $100 million of free cash flow from operations. Next up is Lucky Shot. It's a two-hour drive from Anchorage. It is easily accessible. And it's a small resource right now. We understand the vein structure. It's a very simple mesothermal vein structure. We've gone underground and put the underground development work in place so that we can get the detailed infill drilling done and extending the density of drilling along the entire approximately one mile of strike length of the known vein. Our objective, you can see we've outlined over 100,000 ounces at 14.5 grams gold. That's at the indicated grade. We're undertaking an 18,000-meter drill program right now.
The objective is to outline between 400,000 and 500,000 ounces of resource and then target about 250,000 ounces of that as a reserve and develop a mine plan that can target startup production of 30,000 ounces and then ramp up to 40,000, maybe 50,000 ounces of annual production. And then once you have a five-year mine plan, with these mesothermal vein systems, you just keep drilling down, dip, and long strike and keep that five-year mine plan going forever. Lastly, Johnson Tract, again, located on private land owned by an Alaska Native Corporation, CIRI, roughly a million-ounce gold equivalent resource. This is a polymetallic deposit, or as we like to refer to now, critical metals. This is copper, lead, zinc, gold, and silver. The gold and silver make up about 70% of the value of the project, with zinc, copper, and lead making up the balance.
I mentioned earlier, we're included in the FAST-41 dashboard, so this is a federal permitting coordinating agency, and we're very excited to get them involved. It helps with the whole transparency of the permitting process, the accountability for all of us, for the federal agencies, state agencies, and ourselves included in terms of the process of permitting a project, and we're looking at about 100,000 ounces of gold equivalent production here starting in 2030. We completed an initial assessment earlier this year in May that looked at that production profile of about 100,000 ounces of gold a year. You can see the NPV of the project, and what's quoted here is the base case price, which was $2,200 gold. If we do this today at our $4,000 gold price or in that neighborhood, it's about a $600 million NPV.
What I really love about these kinds of projects, these high-grade projects, they have really quick payback. In the case of Johnson Tract, our payback is a little over a year at the base case of $2,200 gold. And at $4,000 gold, it's less than a year. So these are high-quality projects. If we go to the next slide, you can just see how these stack up. I'm sorry, no. I wanted to explain the DSO model because I think our shareholders are very familiar with it, but I wanted to explain what it is and what it means, especially for the Dolly shareholders. So DSO, direct shipping ore, and basically, so what you're doing is you're mining at the face. I've chosen an underground mine here, but in the photo, but it works just as well for open-pit mines as we're demonstrating with the Manh Choh project.
Basically, you're just loading this ore in a box. Then that box is really easily transportable, moves around with a forklift. It has a lid so that you're not getting any fugitive dust around, so that helps from an environmental standpoint. That's loaded either onto a truck or onto a rail or onto a barge, just depending on what your local infrastructure is like. For Johnson Tract, we anticipate loading it on a truck and hauling it down to a barge landing site and then putting it on the barge. This is the same we envisioned for the Kitsault project. The key things here are you've got to be close to infrastructure. If you're close to water, you're close to infrastructure. Again, that's where Johnson Tract and Kitsault have this great synergy. You're not building a mill, and you're not building a tailings facility.
Those are expensive to build, and they take a long time to permit, especially when you need to get an air quality permit if you have to put an on-site power plant to run a mill and a tailings facility. They take a lot of energy to do those things, and so by not building a mill and a tailings facility, you're reducing your environmental footprint at site. You're reducing the amount of things that need to be permitted, and of course, by not building a mill and a tailings facility, you're saving yourself a huge amount of dollars not building those at site, so that's the beauty of the DSO model. What does it require? You have to have projects with grade. You've got to be relatively close to infrastructure.
We like projects that are simple and high-grade [that] can carry some mistakes because you're inevitably going to make a few mistakes doing things and not make all the right calls. But when you've got a high-grade deposit, you can make that; usually grade pays for everything. As Shawn mentioned earlier, grade is king in our world. Next slide, this just shows the three projects stacked up. And Shawn mentioned this. We're on track. We're currently producing 60,000 ounces of gold a year. With Lucky Shot, we get up to that 100,000 mark. And then with Johnson Tract, 200. And obviously, we add on Kitsault here, and we just continue to grow. And as I mentioned earlier, great exploration opportunities at all four districts. And I will leave it at that and turn it over to you, Shawn.
Okay. No, and I hope that as my shareholders went through that, they could see that's a high-grade, strong portfolio with a great team. And it's what attracted me to want to do this business combination. For the Contango shareholder, we're looking at a part of Northwest BC, just south of Alaska, just south of your projects. It's accessible by road, by sea, and by air. I'm in Vancouver. It's about a 16-hour drive to site, or it's about an hour and a half flight. And I'll summarize the Golden Triangle by saying in the last 30 years, when we have seen infrastructure, we've got hydroelectric power, we've got roads, we've got a deep water seaport at Stewart. When the infrastructures come in, in the last three decades, 150 million ounces of gold have been discovered, 150 million ounces of gold, and 1.2 billion ounces of silver.
This is an area that's hosted the most profitable gold mine in North America, the Premier Mine. It hosted the Eskay Creek Discovery, which was discovered in 1989, hole 109. Eskay Creek produced 3 million ounces at 49 grams per ton, 160 million ounces of silver at over 2,200 grams per ton. And then it was the Brucejack Mine in 2017 that started operating. That's now operated by Newmont. So what this area is, is one of the richest 20 kilometers on planet Earth for silver and gold. And what my strategy has been at Dolly Varden over the last five years is to systematically put together a portfolio that now includes five past-producing high-grade silver mines, very, very famous silver mines, and a 100,000-hectare land position. We've got a large mineral inventory that currently sits at 64 million ounces of silver and a million ounces of gold.
We're looking to do a new 43-101 compliant resource estimate. We've done a lot of drilling, just under 200,000 meters of drilling. The guidance I've given to my shareholders is my expectations are a 50% increase in silver, a 50% conversion on the gold side from the inferred ounces into the indicated, and a 50% increase in the grade of those converting ounces. So where I think we're going to land is the guidance I've given is I see a project going from 64 million ounces of silver to 100 million ounces of high-grade silver, 300-gram material. On the gold side, our indicated grades are over seven grams per ton. We have a lot of confidence in the continuity of our ore body and the grade. Again, access is everything in our business. We've got supportive local communities, supportive indigenous partners.
I work here in an office that has worked with the Nisga'a, creating businesses with the Nisga'a. We've got. We're bringing relationships. We're bringing technical expertise. We're bringing high-grade resources. We're bringing a team that has worked in the area for decades and decades and decades. Our VP Exploration, Rob Van Egmont, was there when the Snip mine was discovered in the 1980s. Rob McLeod was born and raised a third-generation miner from the district and has got great relationships. We've got the infrastructure. We've got the endowment. We've got the relationships. We've got the scientists. Romeo, go to the next slide. Just kind of zeroing in, I gave you a snapshot of the broader Golden Triangle with the last image where you saw the Brucejack mine. Now we're zooming in. Rick talked earlier in his presentation about underutilized processing facilities.
There's an underutilized processing facility that you'll see just under the word Red Cliff. It's the Premier Mill. So you've got a permitted 2,500-ton-per-day mill that's hungry for ore. And we've got one of the most advanced, large, high-grade silver and gold systems in the district. We've got a couple of images up here. The first image on the top left is drill core from our Homestake Silver Deposit. We've got two main centers of gravity on the project. We've got the Gold Rich North, which is Homestake, where we've got a million ounces of gold and 20 million ounces of silver. And then just south of that, we've got the historic Dolly Varden Silver Mine, the Torbrit Mine, and the new Wolf Discovery. And so starting at the gold-dominant north at Homestake, we've got an image here of drill core that cut 26 grams of gold over 14 meters.
Now we've taken a picture of a sample from the Premier Deposit from the 310 level. That sample was running about 300 grams per ton. That drill core is running. That piece is running 433 grams per ton. So as you could see visually here, similar geology, similar makeup, so very, very amenable to that facility. So that's Homestake. And then just south of Homestake, and I think this is what makes Dolly Varden truly unique. In North America, there are 170 gold projects that have a minimum of 750,000 ounces of gold. There are only 33 projects that have over 25 million ounces of silver. And so primary silver mines are unique. They're rare. They represent one out of every four silver ounces that gets produced. We have here a primary silver system. We're highlighting a drill hole here, 1,400 grams of silver over 21 meters.
I want to emphasize this is not in the 43-101. This is open. We've got about 80 drill holes pending, and I talked earlier in the presentation about the highlights from 2024 and 2025. The 80 holes that we're looking to report, the holes that we have reported have been exceptional, so it's open. It's high-grade. It daylights at surface. It's a wide deposit, potentially amenable to bulk mining, so it's got all the characteristics you want to see. This is not a silver equivalent. This is a primary silver system that, as it moves north, goes silver-gold and then gold-dominant, like some of those famous projects, Premier, SK, and Brucejack. We'll go on to the next slide, and look, I talked about five past-producing mines that we have in the portfolio. The best place to make expansion, extension, or new discoveries is around an existing mine.
The Torbrit Mine, which we're looking at right here, is a very, very special deposit. We've got a drill hole here, 400 grams of silver over a true width of 65 meters. So this is our VPX describes it as an ice cream scoop-shaped deposit. This was Canada's third largest primary silver mine when it was operating and operated for a decade. So what we've done is we've come into the Torbrit. We've made discoveries around it. We're finding lookalike deposits like the Wolf, which is only one mile away. And we've got a number of these breaks. We've got a structurally controlled trend, the Kitsault Valley, that's running about 10 miles from south to north. And every mile cross-cutting is another break. And so we've identified so far seven deposits. They start at surface. Most of them have only been drill tested to 300 meters.
Dolly Varden, and Rick pointed this out, Contango has got a phenomenal five-year plan. What Dolly does is it extends that plan, and now we've got a 20-year business. It's high-grade. It's safe jurisdiction. It's complementary to your existing asset base. I'm excited to get out these 80 drill holes that are pending that'll all be out just after Christmas and into January. Then we'll take all that data from the 56,000 meters drilled this year and from the over 100,000 meters of drilling in previous years, and we'll put that into a new compliant resource estimate. With that, Romeo, I'll turn it back to you.
I'll just jump in here a bit. I love Torbrit. I think it's geologically fascinating. But from a development standpoint, from a DSO development standpoint, direct shipping ore standpoint, this is a great place to start because there's a road that goes right to it from the water. So it's high-grade. You got 30 million ounces here, I think, is what we're looking towards. And it's something that you've got a road to. We can upgrade the road next year and start putting a plan together. So again, I'm really excited about this. Both companies have done a lot of due diligence on each other. So from our side, we've sort of lifted the skirt, as they say, and the Dolly team has done the same. And we've visited each other's projects. So there's been a lot of thought and process go into this decision.
I can't be more excited to see what we can go from here. So Romeo, we'll wrap it up with the summary here. Look, complementary assets. We're building a mid-tier North American silver-gold company. We'll name the company Contango Silver and Gold. We've got exposure to non-dilutive financing from the cash flow from Manh Choh. We are very excited about the exploration potential of these four districts, but also the quickness using the DSO model that we can get these assets producing.
I'll just say that the challenging part is putting metal in the ground, right? With the mineral endowment and with a track record of discovery, of looking at a 100-year-old mining camp and coming in and making new discoveries. What we've done is we've gone out and picked up 100,000 hectares of ground just around the Dolly Varden projects. Now we're inheriting, and we're multiplying that by five times and bringing that discovery-oriented team to do the same systematic work to grow the portfolio. Discovery is the toughest thing to do in this business. Finding the metal in the ground is the toughest thing to do in this business. With the enhanced capital markets profile of greater scale, greater liquidity, index inclusion, we will have a currency. We will have cash flow. And it's for all these reasons that we are wildly supportive of the deal. It was unanimously approved by both boards. And in addition to the due diligence that the management teams have done, both companies had special committees and worked with independent advisors providing fairness opinions to ensure that the transactions were in the interests of the shareholders.
Romeo, let's go ahead and open it up for questions.
Awesome. Thank you very much for that very thorough presentation. I know we do have an analyst on the line, Marcus Giannini from Haywood. Feel free to pop on and ask your question, and we'll get this on the line.
We're having trouble hearing you, Marcus. Do you mind moving a little closer to your microphone?
Not spectacularly. It does appear like internet's not great. Oh, that has actually improved if you got it right now.
Okay. All right. If you can hear me, I'll fire away so I won't hold you guys up too long.
Still good, Marcus. Still good.
Okay. Cool. So yeah, first off, I guess more of a question for Rick here. Just taking a look at some of the Contango assets and obviously nice to see some production coming out of Manh Choh. My question is really around mine life, longevity. How are you sort of taking on the issue of replacement here at the operation given your sort of exploration background? Do you see much upside on the exploration and expansion front there at site or within the property in JV? Or is the idea really to buckle down at Lucky Shot and hit that 400,000 ounce figure as sort of the next ore source?
Yeah. I think we see the ability to extend the DSO mine life at Manh Choh maybe a year or two. That's kind of what we've been guiding. We're seeing as we continue to drill in and around the pit, we're seeing some bits and pieces here of mineralization. In terms of finding a new sort of a new DSO deposit on the Manh Choh property, we have not announced anything yet. We're still exploring. We spend about $5 million a year doing exploration. So that's yet to come. Now, there's certainly lots of exploration potential in the remainder of the property, but it may or may not fit the DSO approach. So to answer your question, that's why we are focused on advancing Lucky Shot and getting that into production as quickly as possible. Then the other projects, Johnson Tract, and now adding Kitsault here. As I said earlier, we had a good five-year plan, and now we've got a good 20-year business.
Okay. Awesome. Thanks, Rick. That's really, really helpful. And then just one last one here. Obviously, a few assets on the go with Lucky Shot, Johnson Tract, and the pipeline on the Contango side. And then just thinking about Kitsault Valley, obviously, there's the updated resource slated for the first half of next year with the subsequent PEA. Shawn, I guess this one's more pointed towards you, but should we assume a more muted approach regarding exploration capital at Kitsault? You guys have had some large programs over the previous years, and there's a lot of sort of drill results to digest there on the exploration front. But just wondering how you approach capitalizing on some of the exploration upside as you've highlighted some of those spectacular hits and the openness of multiple deposits at site.
Yeah. Good question, Marcus. So our approach at Dolly has always been data-driven, right? And we never try to look out too far until we have all the data. And we've had years. If I think back to 2023, we drilled more meters in 2023 than we did in 2024, right? And so we're always thoughtful stewards of capital. We envision a big program, so we're not taking our foot off the gas. And the difference, though, is with Rick and his team, we are going to be looking for development and sort of an eye to the future production to drive the next phase of exploration. So it'll be big meters. There will be still a discovery-oriented component to the exploration program, but we really want to look at this from an economic perspective, and that's what's really going to drive the next phase of exploration.
Awesome.
Okay. Awesome. Appreciate it.
Perfect. Got one from Tate Sullivan with the Maxim Group. They want to know what the benefits of a Canadian company merging with a US company. He says he presumes the benefits might be potential access to US government funding. He wants to know if it's a negative signal generally of operating as a Canadian company.
Can I just?
No, you go ahead, Shawn.
Okay. Well, I'll go first, and then you tail off. Look, for me, I just have something that I learned, which was in order to get into these big, like the S&P 500, why are so few companies there? It's not just a size factor. And I think one of the things that we thought about when we looked at who was going to be topco, who was going to be the surviving entity, many, many factors were considered. Tax drove the decision. But one thing that drove it for me was I wanted the surviving entity to be an American entity.
As we look to grow this company, as we look into the future, and I envision a company here that's going to be valued in the billions of dollars in market cap, I want to be indexed in some of the biggest indices in the United States of America. So it was really important for me to have this company. You look at a company like Pan American Silver that's not a U.S. co, they don't have the same advantages and benefits of a Hecla or of a Newmont.
Yeah. I can just add, I think from, I guess, turning it around, and look, the Canadian market's a resource-focused market. Shawn, you've got a very strong retail shareholder base. And that's something we don't have. We started as a friends and family company five years ago, and we've got the New York listing, and we've grown our shareholder base, but it's mostly high net worth. And so I think it's just a great combination. And obviously, with the Canadian property of access to flow-through financing when you're financing the company at a premium. So I think there's a lot of advantages for Contango shareholders. In terms of accessing U.S. funds, I mean, that's something it's always a possibility for projects in the U.S., but you don't need to be a U.S. company as there's plenty of Australian and Canadian companies that are partnering with the U.S. government to advance critical metals projects. I don't see any sort of a downside there at all.
I just want to make a comment for all the Contango shareholders that are watching and listening. We have shareholders in Australia, in Southeast Asia, throughout Europe. Dolly Varden, really, we've been on a mission since 2023 to make it a global brand. So if you're a precious metals enthusiast globally, we've introduced a value proposition, and we've populated. Romeo, before we hit go here, you were making the comment that the only place that wasn't represented was Antarctica. We do have some friends that are traveling there soon, so I don't know if we can get a connection, but.
Yeah. They can sign on for the next one. Now, I am going to go right to the half hour here if you guys don't mind. We don't have a hard stop. I'm going to try and adjust. So go through just a couple of my questions that I had and then get to some of the biggest ones in the chat. But keep in mind, if I don't get your question today, of course, I will make sure the teams get them, and they'll get back to you as quickly as possible. One thing, Rick, I wanted to just ask: is Manh Choh Contango seeing $100 million in free cash flow in 2025? So with the combined company now holding four development-stage assets, I just want to get inside both of your heads for how you're prioritizing capital allocation. What's the framework for deciding which project gets funded first?
I think, again, we've both done due diligence here, and I think it's fairly obvious that that one slide there showed sort of the timeline over the next three, four years to get all these assets towards a development decision, and again, the DSO model really shortens the timeline because you're not permitting a whole lot of things. It shortens, or it reduces, the amount of capital that you need to spend to get into production. That's the luxury that grade gives you. If you've got one gram deposit, depending on the strip ratio, you may barely get that ore to the edge of the pit. So, whereas high grade, it will make money. So the schedule here, see, I'll emphasize their exploration. They're still advanced-stage exploration assets. So there's risk here.
We've demonstrated, I think both teams have demonstrated their prowess at being good explorers. And so when we say we're going to carry out an 18,000-meter infill drill program at Lucky Shot, I'm pretty sure we're going to hit the vein, and I'm pretty sure we're going to hit grade. Is there a risk that that grade doesn't add up to being equal to mine? Of course, there is. But that's the plan, and it's going to take a year to do the drilling. And by 2027, we'll know whether we have enough ore to make a mine, again, fitting the DSO model. The advantage with Lucky Shot is it's fully permitted. So if we throw a rock in the box and we work out a deal with Fort Knox to process the ore there, which is, it's a very simple ore. It's quartz and gold.
So it doesn't take rocket science to extract the gold. So that's the obvious next place to spend money. But we don't need to spend $50 million or $100 million there. We're going to spend $20 million. And then Johnson Tract, we've outlined the program there. Shawn's got plenty of money in the bank to finance the next two years at Kitsault. So yeah, I mean, I think these things just fit well together. There's not like we can't do one without the other or something like that. I think the beauty is the synergies between Johnson Tract and Kitsault. Their metal makeup is different. Of course, even at Kitsault, it's different from the south to the north. It's silver-rich at the south and gold-rich at the north. But it's gold and silver throughout. And Johnson Tract, again, high grades. From a metallurgical standpoint, they're very similar sulfide-rich ores that can be processed through an appropriate mill. And again, that's the next step of what we're working on. And all I can say is we're under NDA, so stay tuned.
Look, just one thing I want to add to that is for the Dolly shareholder, yes, we have $60 million in the bank. By combining with Contango and only having overhead for one company, really, we could go and spend $20 million over the next three years at Kitsault, and we're fully funded for that.
There you go. I still think rocks in a box at Fort Knox would make a good T-shirt, so if anybody's enterprising in the chat. There's a couple of things I know that I had in my questions we've already kind of gone over. But one thing, Rick, I don't think has come up or we haven't gotten into the details. I know Johnson Tract just received FAST-41 coverage in December. So for investors unfamiliar with that designation, what does that mean for the permitting timeline? And Shawn, how does that compare to the regulatory environment in BC?
Yeah. So FAST-41, again, it was a program started under the Obama administration to help the permitting process. It's no secret that the permitting process in the United States is broken or not. It's just very dysfunctional. When you had to coordinate all these different agencies that have different agendas and different ways of doing things, the Obama administration recognized that we want to get roads built. We want to get windmills built and solar plants and mines and what have you. We need to fix this somewhat broken federal permitting system. That's what the FAST-41 program was the reason it was started. Of course, with the focus on critical metals now, the FAST-41 program has included mining projects. What it means is it's coordination.
It's a dashboard that goes on a website where the lead agency, and in our case, that'll be the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Johnson Tract project. That's typically the case because you usually have to always build a road, and you're going to be impacting wetlands. And so the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is the federal oversight agency for that. So what it does, the FAST-41 gets all of the agencies, all the federal agencies have to take a federal action to either coordinate or to coordinate through the FAST-41. In this case, the federal action is driven by our wetlands permit that we'll need to build a road between the mine site and the port site. The easements have already been granted, so there's not a federal action from the Department of the Interior.
But there is, because of the requirement to get a 404 permit, what's called a wetlands permit, that's where the federal action takes place. And so that's the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They'll coordinate with the National Park Service since the easement is across Park Service land, which is Department of the Interior and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric—was that NOAA? National Oceanic and Atmospheric, whatever it is. I can't remember. So those are the three main agencies. EPA is always involved because they have an oversight role for clean water, clean air. Again, we're not building a tailings facility, so there's a lot less controversy in a project that doesn't have a tailings facility, which is, again, another beauty of the DSO model. But that's a bit of a background on the FAST-41 program.
And look, from my perspective, British Columbia had a bit of a reputation in the '70s and '80s as going from a really pro-mining jurisdiction to becoming a tougher mining jurisdiction. And so we created an organization back in 2017 called the BC Regional Mining Alliance. And it was actually a government-funded organization. I'm a director of the organization. So it's a partnership between indigenous groups, companies, and the British Columbia government. And the idea is to promote that BC is open for business. And when we talk about the province, we look at it in certain jurisdictions and areas. So in the case of Dolly Varden, you're dealing with a brownfield site that has seen production operations since the 1890s. It's industrial. And so we permit mines in BC.
If we look at Artemis, which is arguably one of the best-performing, best-executed companies on the board with, I think, about a $6 billion valuation. The BC government handed out permits for the Blackwater Mine. Caribou got its permit. Premier got its permit. So it's really, really simple in BC. If you respect water and you respect First Nations, you get permits in a timely manner. The fact that this office has built a reputation working with indigenous groups and the fact that I am a director of this alliance, the BC Regional Mining Alliance, it's. I think the best thing that ever happened to us, Rick, was Mr. Trump because as soon as he came into office, our politicians wanted to move in a thoughtful way, but they wanted to move a little bit quicker.
There you go. I do want to get to some of the questions in the chat before leaving you both with an opportunity to give some final words on this proposed merger. I'll do a couple of ones from the chat. One first, actually, this is a combination of three questions. A lot of people are already looking ahead to the next thing on the day you announce the proposed merger. But will the merger look to do further M&A in BC, or is that enough on your plate right now with existing projects?
I'll maybe start there, and Shawn, chime in as well. But look, we think we're building a rocket ship here. We've got capital. We've got grade. We've got great management. We've got a great board behind us. Yeah. We see lots of other opportunities. Shawn and I have been comparing our lists. There's overlap. There's some things that are similar. There's some other new ideas. I think this is a great platform on which to build a multi-billion-dollar company. So that's, I think, that's my perspective, and I think you're going to hear the same thing from Shawn.
Yeah. And the way I see this going, and I think a lot of shareholders are going, "Okay, well, what's next?" And what's next will be shareholder meetings in Q1, and our shareholders will then vote on the transaction. And we envision closing this in March and combining. And what I want to do is I want to get out, and I want to share the value proposition to unlock the value in the projects that we existingly have. But at some point, I'd like to be hosting another event like this in a year where we are announcing another big transaction. And we're in an environment right now where there is still a great disconnect between commodity price and equity price. And Rick and I have been monitoring projects for decades. And sometimes that's the approach you need to take.
You need to wait and tell the right moment and the right time, be disciplined. We'll one day share the origin story of how we got together on this transaction, but maybe we'll do that at a timely manner. We do have a list. The first thing is let's explain the rationale here. Let's get the appropriate rating. I don't think there's a number of catalysts. The JT, excuse me, the Lucky Shot drilling, the Kitsault 43-101, every quarter that goes by, the JV produces that production. Rerate, rerate, rerate, share the value proposition. What we're seeing in the market is more and more companies are getting picked off, right? Those funds need to go somewhere. Like I said, with $50 billion coming into Proforma Co, that's going to cause a rerate.
We'll see where our list sits and we'll monitor that. But this is the beginning of many transactions. Companies that are successful in this space, Agnico, that started like Dolly at a $20 million valuation that's now $120 million and now $120 billion. You're constantly, as you're depleting your mineral inventory, trying to replenish it. So we're well aware of that, and we're going to be thoughtful, and we'll do it at the right time.
Awesome. Rick, a quick one for you. How much more revenue comes in once the hedges are off at Manh Choh?
About 70%.
There you go. Okay. That was easy. One, speaking of governments, might the U.S. and/or Canadian or BC governments provide free money grants for any of the four projects? Has any government funds flowed to the projects to date?
I can answer from my side. No, no government funds have flowed to the project as of now. Right now, we don't have any specific plans. We're fully financed to do what we want to do. If there's something interesting to do with federal government, we'll certainly take a look at it. But yeah, from our side, no.
From my end, we've got, as Rick pointed out earlier, the tax-advantageous flow-through expenditure credit. So that's a way to minimize dilution, and it's a way for those expenditure credits to flow through to the investor. So that is the government initiative that encourages exploration and development. We've got something called the Canadian Infrastructure Fund, and we have put in an application to receive some government money to study things Rick talked about, the roads, the existing roads that we have that go from Tidewater to Torbrit. So we've put in for a grant, a CAD 10 million grant to get government funding to pay for infrastructure improvements. And then lastly, the government is looking to do interest-free loans to indigenous groups who will then turn around and make investments. So that's another mechanism that we can pull on. As indigenous groups like the Nisga'a, Nisga'a now are the largest. They own the largest stake in a public company for an indigenous group, and they're looking to make more investments. And if they can get an interest-free loan from the Canadian government to make that investment, that's a big incentive. And that'll obviously come in at a much lower cost of capital than going to traditional capital markets.
Awesome. Appreciate that. One person has also reflected on the question that came over email. Somebody notes they invested in Contango because of the very low share count. They're just looking for Rick's reassurance that there isn't going to be significant dilution to Contango shareholders because of the merger.
Yeah. I mean, obviously, we're combining, and so there's a 50% increase in the number of shares because we're combining on a 50/50 basis. So we'll have 31 million shares outstanding. I don't consider that dilution when I'm adding high-quality ounces of silver and gold that I'd say are equal to Johnson Tract. Johnson Tract is an incredibly unique high-grade deposit, but so is Kitsault Valley. And so I see that's where I don't see that. I don't count that as dilution. If I'm adding high-quality ounces, and keep in mind, there's 200,000 meters of drilling that hasn't been incorporated into the resources that are currently on Dolly Varden's books. So I don't consider this that dilution. I think we still have our five-year plan remains intact in terms of getting our production up towards 200,000 ounces. Kitsault, just as I said, that takes that five-year plan and makes it into a 20-year business model and as we've talked about, a platform that we can continue to grow the company and just with looking at production, looking at other DSO models.
Awesome. I do want to zoom in and give you both an opportunity to kind of speak to your shareholders here. I'll say zooming out, looking at the combined entity, we've got production, significant cash flow, dual-listed status, pipeline going from exploitation to development. For investors looking at the story today, what are you most excited about delivering? Basically, my question to both of you is, billion-dollar market cap is cool, but what's taken you guys to two and three and four? Rick, I can start with you.
Look, I think everything always starts with the people. I think you've got two companies that have demonstrated successful track records of executing their business plans. I think Shawn and I have different backgrounds and different approaches, but they're very synergistic. I'm looking forward to working with him and the whole team there to use this as a platform to continue to build the company. Next up is the assets themselves. And as we've talked about, they're high-grade. They're in a tier-one jurisdiction. Our assets are all on private land. So in the United States context, that definitely means it's a lot easier to get permitting done. And of course, Shawn mentioned President Trump, and he is all about critical metals, and he's all about Alaska. The man just absolutely loves Alaska.
So we want to take full advantage of that and advance our projects. We want to do it thoughtfully. And the FAST-41, it's an acronym that I think is a bit misnamed. It was a federal to advance the federal highways and getting things permitted. I can't remember exactly what it stood for, but I guess some intern in BC decided FAST would be cool. But at any rate, we want to take advantage of getting our projects permitted. I'm speaking mainly to Johnson Tract. But to build this, to use this as a platform to build this company to a multi-billion-dollar company. And Shawn mentioned Agnico Eagle. I think that's the crown jewel of how to build a company. It started with a nice high-quality asset in Eastern Canada, the LaRonde Mine, which is still going. But from that base, they built probably one of the highest quality gold and silver mining companies out there. So that is our ambition, and I think we're off to a great start here.
Rick and Shawn, I'll let you close it out today by just speaking to your crowd, but generally, what you're excited about in the next year?
Yeah. Well, I think back to when this new management team came into Dolly Varden, and we asked shareholders to trust us and get behind us. And it's been a good exercise for those shareholders. They're up 600%. And they've seen us build a business through making acquisitions, through leveraging capital into science and making discoveries. And for me, in order to make that leap to two, three, and beyond billion, we needed to partner. We needed to partner with a group, somebody like Rick, who's not only got the portfolio, the cash flow, and the pipeline, but also has the credibility through companies like NovaGold and Trilogy Metals. So I think I'm really excited because in this business, trust is everything. You've got to work extremely hard. You've got to get lucky. But we've now got four assets under current management that have a lot of upside and, again, a larger enhanced platform to continue to grow.
Awesome, well, gentlemen, Shawn, Rick, thank you so much for going through this presentation. Thank you, everybody, who joined. Like I said, pretty enormous geographic representation in the audience today. Thanks for all your questions. I know I didn't get to all of them, but I will be making sure the teams get them, and the replay will be available probably in about an hour, hour and a half, so that'll pop right in your inbox. It'll be available on 6ix's YouTube channel as well, but everyone in the room, Rick, Shawn, thank you so much. Hope you have a great end of your day.
Thank you, Romeo. Shawn.
Thank you, Romeo. See you later.
Cheers, everyone.