Welcome back, everyone. We want to also welcome back Brazil Potash. They trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol GRO. They're developing Brazil's largest potash fertilizer project, the Autazes Project, positioned to supply sustainable fertilizers and reduce Brazil's 95% and more reliance on imported potash. Joining us today is Matt Simpson, the CEO of Brazil Potash. So nice to have you back, Matt. We're very much looking forward to your update.
Excellent. And I appreciate having me on.
All right. The floor is yours. Call me back for questions.
Sounds good. So I'm going to go through a very, very quick update for those of you that aren't familiar with Brazil Potash, and then I'll quickly move on to what's happened throughout this year and why 2026 is going to be such an exciting year for investors. For those of you that aren't familiar with the potash sector, this is one of the three main nutrients that is used to grow food that has no substitute. And it's very topical because President Trump just yesterday announced $12 billion in subsidies to American farmers, while on the same breath saying that he's looking at putting tariffs onto Canadian fertilizer suppliers. And the U.S., much like Brazil, is extremely exposed because the United States imports 95% of its potash. The bulk of it comes from Canada. Similarly, in Brazil, Brazil is actually the number one consumer in the world.
The U.S. is number three, equally importing about 95% of its potash. And there's only three main suppliers, being Canada, Russia, and Belarus. So what makes this project special is simply that we're in Brazil and everyone else is 12,000 miles away, supplying a product that people have no choice but to buy because we all have to eat at a cost equivalent to half of just the transportation cost alone for everyone else. The company is fully permitted for construction. Our plan is to initially produce 2.4 million tons a year. They'll supply just shy of 20% of Brazil's needs for a 23-year period of time. The 23 years is really just the tip of the iceberg. This basin in Brazil is absolutely massive. It's about 250 miles long by about 100 miles wide. So it could be several hundreds of years of operation.
And once up and running, we expect to generate about $1 billion a year of free cash. On the funding side, it will cost about $2.5 billion to build this project, out of which we do expect to get at least $1.8 billion in debt. Franco-Nevada, the biggest royalty and gold company in the world, is looking to put $150 million in. We also announced an MOU earlier this year for a third-party company called Fictor to build our power line, which will take about $200 million off. And we're looking to replicate that model with our steam plant, our river barge port, and our trucking. So that could take at least another $150 million out of the cap stack. So lots of big things to happen there. And since we were last on the show, we've made substantial changes to our board.
At the start of this year, we had Mayo Schmidt come on as our executive chairman. Mayo is an absolute icon because he's the founding chairman of Nutrien, the world's largest fertilizer producer by market cap. We also brought on Christian Jörg, who helped Mayo create a company called Viterra, which they sold to Glencore for about $7 billion. And for the last 10 years, Christian has been heading the global food security program at SALIC, which is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And most recently, we added Marcelo Lessa to our advisory board, who used to be a senior executive with the IFC based in Latin America. So very, very strong hitters that have deep Rolodexes to help fund the construction. At our site, when we started the year, it looked like the top picture where we had some secondary growth.
During the year, we removed all that secondary growth. So the site looks exactly as you see it in the middle picture. And that's all in preparation for the construction of the underground mine and processing plant that you see at the bottom. So this year, we delivered on all of the major milestones we expected. We are now pre-sold for 91% of our production, which is all that we want to sell, to three different parties under binding take-or-pay contracts. We again announced that MOU with Fictor to build the 102-mile-long power line, which will take $200 million off our balance sheet. And we started the early works construction in addition to announcing training for the local community. Moving ahead, we expect to announce that we'll go binding with Fictor on that power line.
We also expect to be able to replicate that model where a third party fully funds our port, our steam plant, and our 20 megawatts of construction power. We also expect to announce that Brazil's government will exempt us from import duties, which will take at least another $100 million off our construction cost. And we have several companies right now under non-disclosure agreements looking at making a substantial investment at the asset level, both for debt and equity. So, Anna, those are the main highlights.
Perfect. Thank you so much, Matt. Yeah, why don't you touch briefly a little bit more on the recent threat by Trump and how that's going to affect your industry in Canada?
President Trump's recent threat to impose tariffs on Canadian fertilizer could actually cause prices globally to jump as much as 25% because, again, it's an oligopoly. There's only three countries that can supply that product. While the U.S. farmer can reduce the amount of consumption or even forgo for a very brief period of time, there is no sustainable alternative to Canada. Similarly, for Brazil, these higher prices will only further increase the future profits of our company and reinforce the need to have a fourth major global supplier of this key nutrient to grow food.
It's timely that Brazil Potash secured approximately 91% of production through offtake agreements this year. Talk about this milestone and why it's so important for the company and investors.
When we speak to export credit agencies and development finance institutes regarding the debt for construction of our project, they're not willing to take any risk on our ability to sell the product. So while it might seem obvious that you'll be able to sell a key nutrient to grow food in the world's largest consuming market, they want to have that certainty. So what these contracts do is provide highly credible counterparties that are committed to buy at market price plus an inland freight premium our product for periods of 10-17 years, which will cover the duration of our debt backed by letters of credit.
All right. And you also just raised $28 million this year and established a $75 million equity line. So walk us through the financing strategy as you move towards construction.
So the recent $28 million that we brought in is great because we put in some very well-funded shareholders into our registry. And that provides us with all the cash that's needed to deliver on the major milestones that I just outlined. So that gives us a very, very good runway to pull together, most importantly, the fully funded for construction solution for our project. The equity line of credit will go away. We'll likely replace that with an ATM at some point. And it really just gives the company some flexibility to, again, advance the project.
And so when it comes to an AI optical sorting trial, you just announced that. So explain what that technology and innovation means from an investment and valuation perspective.
This is extremely exciting technology, Anna, so basically, you can use X-rays to look at the ore and determine whether it's actually potash or sodium chloride, which is our waste, which could be a byproduct, and prior to actually processing that ore, you can reject any of the lower content potash, so what's happened in Germany is they actually have, for the last three years, commercially trialed this technology, and it's something that is only available now with the computer processors having a much faster speed backed by more efficient algorithms to process the information through AI technology to do it in real time, and this mine in Germany has successfully rejected half of the waste material underground, so they've hoisted half as much material and only processed half as much, so practically speaking, we can't guarantee that in our case we'll see the same result.
But what it should mean is that we're going to be able to cut the cost of building our processing plant and potentially also reduce the operating costs.
There you go. And last question for you. Brazil imports over 95% of its potash. So how does this market dynamic create a compelling investment thesis?
Again, this is a key nutrient to grow food with no substitute. When we talk about Brazil, it's quite unique because Brazil grows two and a half crops a year. Most of the rest of the world can only do one. Brazil also has the highest amount of fresh water. They have massive amounts of arable land. As the world population continues to grow, Brazil's importance to feed the world also grows. Its weakness is that they import 98% of their potash when potentially the second biggest basin in the world is sitting in their backyard being developed by Brazil Potash. For investors, this is an amazing opportunity because you're going to tap into a product that people have no choice but to buy because we have to eat, with downside price protection in the world's largest, fastest growing market.
Wonderful. Well, Matt, thank you for this update. Exciting time to be in your industry. And we look forward to seeing you again in 2026. All right. Thank you so much. And we'll be right back, everyone.