I'm Joanne Jobin, your VidMedia Town Hall host, and today I'm absolutely delighted to welcome everyone to the Gold Royalty Virtual Investor Day broadcast. Before we commence, just a reminder that if you have any questions for the team or the company, please place them into the Q&A tab located at the top of this screen. After the update, I will be delighted to moderate submitted questions from our audience. With us this morning is the entire Gold Royalty team, led by Chairman and CEO David Garofalo, who will make the intros to the team. David, the stage is yours.
Thanks so much, Joanne, and thank you again for all your kind attention, particularly shortly after we did a town hall about our recent Borborema acquisition. But this is a very interesting investor day, and we always try to time it right after we publish our asset handbook and ESG report, both of which were put into the public last week and available on our website. It gives us an opportunity to introduce the team beyond just the C-suite, the people that are contributing to the organization and contributing to the rapid growth of our company over the last several years, and allows us to get a layer or two deeper in terms of the asset portfolio, how they're advancing, how they're contributing to what is peer-leading growth in the sector in terms of revenue and free cash flow generation.
To that end, I would say that we do have some forward-looking statements within this presentation, but the team that's joining me today is Andrew Gubbels, our Chief Financial Officer. Andrew has a wealth of mining experience, having spent a couple of decades on the investment banking side, most recently with UBS. John Griffith, our Chief Development Officer, employee number one, if you will. He joined the company right around the time I did when we were still private, and had led before that the mining group at Merrill Lynch in North America. Between Andrew and John, we bring a wealth of experience in the sector on a transactional basis and also a wealth of contacts.
They covered some of the biggest mining companies in the world, and that's afforded us an opportunity to get access to opportunities to acquire new royalties, new streams on a bilateral exclusive basis, and that's allowed us to grow very, very quickly on a value-created basis. If John is employee number one, I would say Peter's employee number one, a first person that John hired, joined us again while we were still private, and is our Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. So many of you know him. Many of you have come in with questions on the business, and Peter's been your point of contact day to day, but also contributes immensely to our corporate development activities, doing due diligence work and financial modeling and whatnot on our acquisition opportunities.
Alastair Still joined us right around the time we were with private as well, and worked with me for a number of years at Goldcorp and brings a wealth of operating and geological experience to the table. He was a senior operations manager at a Porcupine Complex in Ontario at Goldcorp, built the Cerro Negro mine in Argentina. So in addition to being a very accomplished geologist, he is an accomplished operator and mine builder as well, so brings multiple dimensions and perspectives to the story. Katherine Arblaster is a resource that we share among five companies within our universe. She does ESG work for all the uranium companies within Amir Adnani, our co-founder's, companies universe, and also covers gold mining, which Alastair runs on a full-time basis, and uranium royalty as well, Uranium Energy, and U.S. GoldMining.
So she brings a wealth of ESG experience, having joined us from Deloitte, where she was responsible for the ESG practice there. So you'll hear from each and every one of these people today, but what I thought I'd do is spend a little bit of time talking about. This is the agenda. As I said, Andrew will talk about finance, Katherine on ESG, John will get into the corporate development initiatives, and then Peter will get to a portfolio update along with Alastair, and then I'll close things out and open it up for Q&A at the end of the presentation. But before I get into that, I thought I'd spend a few minutes talking a little bit about the macro environment we find ourselves in.
Obviously, a very sound day for the gold price with the CPI numbers coming a little bit below expectations in the U.S., but I'd prefer to look at it more from a historical perspective. There's obviously a lot of volatility in the commodity in the interim period, but over a 50-year period, gold has been a one-way trade, and that really goes back to when the gold standard was abandoned, not only by the U.S. government, but by many of the leading economies globally. And gold has gone from a low of $35 an ounce in the early 1970s to over $2,400 or close to $2,400 an ounce today, and a lot of volatility in between, but still nowhere near the historical high when you look at it on a real basis.
When gold peaked in the last big inflation cycle in the early 1980s, at that time, close to $900 an ounce, if you inflate just that to $2,024, that would be over $2,800 an ounce. So we still have not achieved the real all-time high in gold. I think the investment case for gold is sound from the perspective that gold is a very accurate and impartial, agnostic barometer of what's happening in real inflation. And the CPI numbers that were published this morning of around 3.4% or 3.3% really understate the reality on the ground where we're all experiencing significant cost inflation in energy, housing, and all of our other costs of living, like food and whatnot, which is significantly double-digit territory. So the CPI numbers are really there to appeal to the masses, but don't reflect the reality on the ground.
Gold reflects that reality, and that's why we think gold is poised for a significant bull run, because as the central banks pivot to lower interest rates, that will inflame inflation, not tame it. We think that gold will have a long run from here, particularly given that global debt levels are significantly above where they were in the last big inflation cycle at 350% debt to GDP. Central banks simply do not have the latitude to bring real interest rates down because it could very well bankrupt governments. We think the gold price is reflective of that, the fact that real interest rates are going down deeper and deeper into negative territory. What we haven't seen is a response in the gold equities. There really has been very muted.
Even the bellwether stocks in the sector are below where they were in the 1990s when gold was in the mid-200s. That's been because of the upwardly dynamic environment for costs. Mining companies are not immune from cost inflation that we're experiencing in the general economy, and that's eaten into their margins. Also the sector is shrinking. All the sector has been able to do over the last decade is cannibalize itself because the juniors have not had access to capital to conduct the very important work of grassroots exploration to make the next major discoveries.
That's opened up opportunities for companies like us to provide capital to the developers and explorers, and for that matter, the operators, where their cost of capital has gone up significantly, and it's introduced a broad array of royalty opportunities into our portfolio and significant growth that we'll talk about in a bit more detail. So we do think that there will be an equity response, a gold equity response, but we think the royalty and streaming companies will lead that response because what they provide is unmitigated exposure to the gold price, protection from inflation that unfortunately the operators can't provide, and growth. We provide significant growth within our portfolio from a royalty portfolio of over 240 royalties that are completely bought and paid for.
Just a bit on copper, given the recent acquisition of a copper stream on the Vares mine in Bosnia, I wanted to take a little bit about the fundamentals of copper. As I said in our conference call a week or so ago when we discussed the various acquisition, our management team has spent equal amounts of time in the base metal universe as they have in the precious metal universe. So this is a core competency for us, understanding the copper universe, understanding copper mines, how they're built, the inherent risk, and how to price that risk appropriately when we're acquiring streams. It provides important diversification to our portfolio. We're still over 90% gold, but we have a copper kicker now in a very long-life project, a long-life mine, say Vares is now producing in Bosnia with significant exploration expansion potential.
And when you look at what Anglo recently tried to do in terms of, or sorry, excuse me, BHP tried to do in trying to take over Anglo, the bigger producers have clearly made the decision to buy rather than build. And what that will do is only exacerbate the significant supply deficit that we expect to see over the coming years. We see burgeoning demand as we electrify our economies and try to decarbonize. And there's no metal more important in the world to decarbonize our economy than copper. It's the most intensively used metal in batteries, in our electrical grid, in order to achieve those decarbonization objectives, very lofty objectives that we have, not only electrify our fleet, but electrify our economy generally.
So copper demand is only going to go in one direction, but supply is extremely challenged given the lack of new investment, new copper mines in the last little while. And most recently, we saw the 10th biggest copper mine in the world shut down due to NGO activity in Panama, Cobre Panama owned by First Quantum. That's only amplified this supply squeeze. And given the lack of investment in new mine construction, what that tells us is that the copper price has to be appreciably higher than where it is right now to incentivize new mine development. In our estimation, we need to see copper 2-3 times where it is right now to incentivize major copper development in order to try to bridge this gap between supply and demand.
And so we're very well positioned with Borborema and some of the other copper-gold porphyries that we have in their portfolio in the development stage to provide that meaningful leverage to the copper price while still maintaining our focus on gold assets. The royalty model, I think it's worth reemphasizing why the royalty model works so well in this inflationary environment. It provides you that top-line exposure while protecting you from cost inflation. And more meaningfully, I think it avoids dilution. If you look at our 240+ royalties and the 80+ operating partners that we have, we own all of those royalties outright. We never have to put another dime into them. There are no capital calls. It's really up to the operators to fund not only the development and optimization of those assets, but the continued exploration of that.
And you'll see a little later on, our operating partners invest over $200 million per annum in exploration on the underlying assets we own royalties on. We contribute nothing to those exploration budgets, but we get the benefit of all of that upside. So you enjoy all the benefit that the exploration efforts of our operators, whether having to worry about dilution as they ramp up the exploration efforts to replace what is a depleting reserve and production profile in the global gold industry. And this just gives you an overview of the evolution of the company. We started quite modestly back in 2021 in our IPO with 18 royalties on very good assets, development-stage assets. None of them were generating revenue. We had a very strong IPO where we raised $90 million, achieved a strong valuation, and when we had the currency, we used it.
We used it to acquire 3 of our competitors, Ely, Golden Valley, and Abitibi. That introduced 150 royalties into the portfolio, a number of them that are cash flowing and a number that were in the development stage. And since then, since we saw a derailing in the gold sector when the Federal Reserve started tightening interest rates in early 2022, we've found other ways to grow. And John will run through this in a little bit later, but we're the only company that grows through 4 platforms. We grow through M&A, though that's been largely put on ice while we've seen our currency not have the kind of relative performance we had hoped given the growth profile that we have in our portfolio.
But we've grown through individual royalty acquisition, third-party royalty acquisition, through project financing, and also through royalty generation with our small team, particularly in Nevada, where we've generated over 60 of the royalties that we own in the portfolio organically. And not only do we generate those royalties for free, we actually get paid through option payments, and it's become a profit center for us. So we continue to populate the pipeline with early-stage opportunities to provide significant optionality on an extremely cost-effective basis while we wait for our stock to re-weight given the significant cash flow profile that we have going forward. If you look at our revenue generation through the end of the decade, we're going to recover more than half of what we've invested in these royalties in 5 or 6 short years, and that's using consensus gold prices.
So we have significant cash flow growth and a meaningful return on investment in a very short period of time from a very diverse portfolio of royalties with a heavy concentration in some of the best jurisdictions in the world in the Americas. The reason we've been able to grow so quickly, I would say, is because of the strength of our board and management. I talked about the people you'll be hearing about today, but within our board, we have Warren Gilman, who runs Queen's Road Capital, 35+ years of industry experience. Alan Hair, mineral process engineer, who was my successor at Hudbay, a CEO, was my chief operating officer, and a prolific mine builder in his own right. So a strong balance of technical expertise. Karri Howlett, who provides ESG expertise in our board.
Angela Johnson, who also is a geologist and provides ESG expertise, rounds out our board along with Ken Robertson, a former CA who provides our financial expertise. Amir Adnani, many of you know on the uranium side, was my co-founder and through the gold mining ownership is our biggest shareholder. Trey Wasser, the co-founder of Ely Gold, maintains an advisory role on the board and again has been responsible for helping us establish our royalty generation business in Nevada along with Jerry Baughman, who was the co-founder of Ely and retains a full-time role with us running our U.S. business and again generating royalty opportunities organically from our business in Nevada.
The other thing we've been able to do in addition to curating strong assets, some of the best assets in North America in terms of royalties, and also curating a very accomplished team with collectively over 400 years of industry experience is some very, very strong strategic investors. Gold Mining has retained all of its shares since the IPO and in fact, from time to time, has waded into the market and bought stock on an opportunistic basis. It retains about a 13% stake in the company. Nevada Gold Mines, which is a joint venture between Barrick and Newmont, is our second biggest shareholder at about 5.5%.
Queen's Road Capital has been a meaningful shareholder since our IPO and most recently, along with Taurus Funds Management in Australia, provided us a convertible financing last year that allows us to acquire the Borborema royalty that we'll talk about a little later on in Brazil. Orion has retained a shareholding as a result of the acquisition of the Vares mine. So they took both cash and share consideration. We have some of the most sophisticated established investors in the industry and operators in the industry retaining strong ownerships within the company, strategic ownerships within Gold Royalty because they understand the intrinsic value of the business that we've been able to build up in three short years since our IPO. With that, I'll hand it over to Andrew to talk through our financial side of our business. Andrew?
Thanks, Dave.
As you have seen from Dave's introduction, Gold Royalty is certainly a company that's moving in the right direction. Let me touch on some of the numbers. Total revenue, land agreement proceeds, and interest has grown by approximately 23% over the last 12 months to the 31st of March 2024. Now, this includes quarterly revenue of $4.2 million for the first quarter of 2024. That was a record for the company as we added new royalties such as Cozamin and Borborema to the portfolio. Cash operating costs, on the other hand, have decreased by approximately 32% over the same period due to focused cost management initiatives and improved corporate efficiencies. With that, recurring operating cash operating expenses now track within the $7-$8 million range on an annual basis moving forward.
As a result of the steadily increasing revenue and the lower operating costs over the past year, Gold Royalty did achieve its first quarter of positive operating cash flow in the first quarter. In fact, total revenue, land agreement proceeds, and interest, less cash operating costs was approximately $1.9 million for the three-month period ended 31st of March 2024. Now, the transition from using cash for operations to generating cash from operations is a remarkable achievement and really sets the company up well to continue our responsible growth and to generate returns for shareholders. Since the Investor Day in June last year, Gold Royalty added 28 new assets to the portfolio. This includes the Cozamin Royalty, the Silver Exploration Stage Royalties, Borborema Pre-Production Royalty, and Golden Valley, and most recently, the Vares Copper Stream.
These acquisitions have added diversification, but importantly, near-term cash flow will smooth the revenue trajectory between our current producing assets and the revenue expected from our Tier 1 world-class royalties at Odyssey, Ren, and Granite Creek, among others. In the near term, because of these additions, we've seen a material step change in our expected revenue for 2024, actually through to 2026 in particular, but I'll speak to our updated guidance in 2024 on the next page. But finally, as a company, we've enjoyed the benefit of supportive strategic shareholders, as Dave just mentioned, but also supportive capital providers. In addition to the many strong institutions who came on the register as a result of our recent capital raisings, shareholders such as Taurus Funds and Orion were added in the last 12 months.
These are sophisticated mining sector investors who are fully aligned with the company's management team strategy and value proposition, really sort of underwriting our goals and objectives. In fact, earlier this year, we did agree on a strategic cooperation agreement with Taurus Funds, which really enhances the pool of investment opportunities we have available and expands our access to capital. John will speak more about that later in the presentation. Lastly, I have to mention that we've had continued support from tier one Canadian banks and Bank of Montreal and National Bank in particular, who have committed capital to Gold Royalty as our secured lenders. Just moving on, in the last 12 months, it's really been a transformational year for Gold Royalty.
While we continue to boast that hockey stick-like growth in future years, we now have a larger, diversified portfolio of cash-generating assets to complement that profile. The reshaped portfolio has materially impacted our GEO and revenue projections in the coming year. In fact, at the time of our 2023 annual results in March, we did announce GEO and revenue guidance that effectively doubled what we had projected or what we actually earned in 2023. That was mainly due to catch-up bounces at Canadian Malartic, initial payments of the Côté royalty, and supplemented by full-year cash flows from the newly acquired Cozamin and Borborema royalties.
Now, following the completion of the recent acquisition of the Vares Copper Stream, we did announce an increase in our guidance by 27% to 6,500-7,000 GEOs, which implies revenue of $13-$14 million per year or $13-$14 million for the calendar year 2024. Now, that's a 160% increase in revenue from 2023. So again, quite a transformational period for Gold Royalty as a company. Now, at the same time, we've been adding to our near-term revenue. Investors in Gold Royalty were well aware of our efforts to reduce our overheads, which really expanded as a result of a period of earlier consolidation in 2021 and 2022. Over the past year, we've been diligent in our efforts to reduce the cash outflows that support our operations, as you know.
Last month, we were excited to announce our first quarter of positive operating cash flow and really the start of our journey as a consistent cash generator. This wouldn't have happened without the focus on streamlining operating costs and the successful execution of those accretive strategic acquisitions in 2023 and earlier this year. Now, in 2024, if you look at the image here, by netting the company's revenue guidance against its recurring cash operating costs, we do expect to see our first full year of quite robust operating cash flow generation. Now, that is a substantial shift from the prior periods and very exciting moving forward. In fact, moving forward, Gold Royalty can look forward to even expanding operating margins as projects within the company's organic portfolio are brought into production year on year.
In short, this is a great time to be a shareholder of the company as we transition into free cash flow positive territory and steadily increasing operating margins as we move forward. Thus far, you've heard about how Gold Royalty has built a solid portfolio of assets, which has allowed us to become a self-sustaining cash flow generator now and into the future, which is a fantastic result. However, it is only the initial step towards the company's broader strategic objectives. The strategy really hasn't changed since the IPO. We still see substantial value creation potential in closing the gap between the smaller cap and larger cap royalty and streaming companies. But with such a strong management team with considerable M&A experience and operating experience, we'll continue to look for opportunities to grow Gold Royalty, which is why having access to capital is important.
Let me go back for a second. First and foremost, the most efficient source of capital are really the cash flows generated from our operations. As explained on the prior page, we are starting to accumulate cash that can be used for growth going forward. Second, as a result of the Vares acquisition, we're able to increase the size of our revolving credit facility to $30 million with a $5 million accordion. The flexibility of our RCF has been helpful as the company grows, has drawn funds to support our recent acquisitions. And third, our strategic cooperation agreement with Taurus Funds is a unique arrangement in the sector. By aligning ourselves with a prominent mining investor in Taurus Funds, we can evaluate larger and potentially more lucrative growth opportunities that we wouldn't be able to on our own.
It's a win-win for both sides and one that we think will help accelerate our growth ambitions. And finally, Gold Royalty has utilized its shelf prospectus to efficiently fund acquisitions and access to equity capital markets. As of today and following the recent Vares Stream acquisition, there's still considerable capacity on the existing shelf. Finally, with approximately 1 million shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange daily, Gold Royalty continues to have strong trading liquidity, which is helpful for investors looking to build a position in the company's shares. In fact, it takes fewer days to turn the company's float than any other peer, excluding one, regardless of market capitalization. We do enjoy a robust network of research analysts, all of whom have buy recommendations and target prices well above the current share price, I might add.
They provide research coverage and sales and trading support for the company, keeps flow in the shares, and is also another positive attribute of the company and a differentiating factor amongst our smaller cap peers in particular. So with supportive capital markets and access to capital, we do see a good foundation for us to continue to grow this company. So now I'll pass it over to Katherine, who will step through ESG.
Thank you, Andrew. Hi, everyone. Over the next few minutes, I'll walk us through the highlights of our recent sustainability report and the exceptional progress we've made in the last year to advance our sustainability goals. As a royalty company, we consider our material sustainability topics in two ways. Corporate topics that are directly managed by the company. These are the top left of the screen.
These include topics such as corporate governance, talent retention, our risk management, and so on. The second are the sustainability-related topics that are directly managed by our portfolio companies. Now, as you know, Gold Royalty is not involved in or has control over the operational decisions of our mining partners, including decisions related to things like tailings management, health and safety, community engagement, or other ESG-related topics or events happening at the mine site. But despite this, we're still exposed to these risks or potential issues that might take place. As such, it's essential that we partner with operators that are as committed to sustainability and responsible mining as we are. This means ensuring that our operators are proactively anticipating and managing sustainability-related risks.
So we assess all of these risks and the full breadth of sustainability risks that you see on the screen through a rigorous due diligence process, which I'll speak to shortly. But as an office-based company with a small workforce, the corporate sustainability topics that hold the greatest importance to our stakeholders and our organization include, amongst others, strong corporate governance, risk management, and ESG due diligence. And you'll see the output of our materiality assessment results on the right-hand side of the screen, with those that have greater importance based on our engagement with stakeholders and discussions internally with management and the board are towards the upper right-hand side. We take the results of this materiality assessment and ultimately develop our sustainability goals every year. And we've made significant progress in 2023 to strengthen our ESG risk management and advance our decarbonization and social impact goals.
These goals are aligned along the top of the table on the screen here. Now, I won't go through all of these, particularly the environmental achievements. I am going to speak to in a bit more detail as we've made significant progress associated with our environmental and decarbonization goals. But in terms of key advancements in 2023, I will mention on this slide, firstly, we've bolstered our corporate risk management procedures through establishing an enterprise risk management process. We've provided anti-corruption training for all of our staff. We've approved a corporate-wide cybersecurity policy, and we've increased diversity on our board to 33% female representation. We've also made significant investments in our people and our community. We've donated over $20,000 to local charities and invested over $12,000 in learning and development across a small team of 15 people. And then finally, in 2023, we've launched an employee volunteer program.
This year and going forward, we're being more intentional in terms of our forward-looking goals on working closely with our operators to support their decarbonization and community investment efforts. I'll speak to some of the ways that we're doing that in just a few slides. Our board has oversight over all of our sustainability goals, our progress closures, and our risk management processes. We've also integrated sustainability considerations across all aspects of our business, including corporate strategic planning, corporate development and asset management, and corporate risk management. As mentioned, as an organization, we're not involved in nor do we have control over the operational decisions of our mining partners, but we're still exposed to these sustainability risks.
As such, we undertake a detailed ESG assessment of every project, operating partner, and surrounding context, including all of the aspects that you see here on the screen, which we consider our ESG due diligence framework. Our objective here is to ensure that projects are being managed appropriately and that the operator is proactively anticipating and managing for their ESG-related risks, as this reduces any risks associated with production delays or future mine shutdowns. Any material risks that we might identify during this process, we discuss with our management team as well as the board of directors. I'll be remiss to mention that ESG due diligence is one part of our broader, very in-depth due diligence process, which also involves the evaluation from a technical, financial, and legal perspective, as well as other considerations.
But as a part of our ESG due diligence process, our goal really is to understand the mining practices of our operators. And we aim to prioritize working with operators that are adopting best practices and responsible mining. So we're quite proud of the key operators and assets in our portfolio and the significant progress they've made around global commitments related to human rights, tailings management, climate change, and sustainable mining practices. And so we've included a snapshot here of some of the great practices that our operators are already adhering to and working towards. And one of the things I'll call out here is even emerging practices, such as the one that is on the far right, which is net positive biodiversity and no net loss.
That's something that's relatively new within the space, but we've already seen a lot of operators starting to make significant progress towards those commitments. We're particularly proud of the sustainable finance arrangement that we've entered into in 2023 with the subsidiary of Ora Minerals at the Borborema Mine. As part of a larger financing arrangement, Gold Royalty has agreed to make ongoing payments to Ora of $30 per GEO delivered or paid to Gold Royalty. So you can think of this a little bit as a sustainability rebate. And these payments are earmarked for ESG-related investments up to a maximum of $300,000. And the intent of these payments are to advance the environmental and social programs, which are additive or go above and beyond the existing ESG programs at the mine.
And we do have the option to be able to approve these use of funds in communication and in partnership with Ora. And so we view this as a really new, innovative way to approach helping our operators to really move forward their own sustainability goals, but also letting them take the lead as they know what the sustainability needs are at the mine site better than we do as the financier. So finally, one of the things that we've put out in our sustainability report this year is our first disclosure aligned to the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, better known as the TCFD.
So at a high level, the TCFD asks organizations to report on their climate-related risks and opportunities, and ultimately the management of these climate-related risks and opportunities, as well as their own GHG emissions and kind of impact and contribution to climate change. The goal of the TCFD disclosure is to help investors have more clarity on how we're managing these types of risks and really what our impact on climate change is. I won't run through the risks and opportunities in too much detail because there is quite a large assessment that we've done, and all of this is available in our sustainability report.
But what we did do is look at various climate scenarios, including ones that look at the global community curbing climate change by 2050, other scenarios that look at a more elongated approach where the global community does not curb climate change by 2050. And we did see a correlation where, as climate change intensifies and the global community does not curb emissions, we could potentially see increased risks around increased rainfall, forest fires, etc., for some of our important and key assets. So one of the positives coming out of this assessment is that we are very encouraged by the active identification and management of these risks by the respective operators and even the level of climate analysis and disclosure. And I think that that's kind of the first step for many of the operators that we're working with.
Also, a takeaway for us was to continue to build this into our ESG due diligence process to make sure that operators are considering net zero pledges and are working towards adopting low-carbon technologies. We found that for Gold Royalty as a whole, there are over-the-long-term climate-related transition risks as well. Some of the obvious ones would be the potential for increased environmental regulation, which may drive up costs for ourselves or other mining companies and operators that we work with, as well as increased operational costs for mine operators as they adopt low-carbon technologies. And then finally, within the royalty space, in the future, there could be a world in which low-carbon mines that's more competitive to get royalties over these assets. So certainly something that we continue to monitor and we continue to discuss at a strategic level within the management team.
From a transition opportunities, we do see potential benefits for Gold Royalty as we think about the energy transition. Dave already spoke to our copper now within our portfolio and the connection there to the energy transition. So that certainly is one part. Secondly, gold will continue to be a safe haven investment, and a lot of climate scenarios will say that as we don't curb climate change, there will be repercussions for the economy. And if the economy is in a more challenging position, a lot of investors turn to gold. So there is some upside in investments in precious metals as well. So a lot more detail on that in the sustainability report. So I certainly encourage you to take a look there. And then finally, in our sustainability report, we did also disclose our GHG emissions or greenhouse gas emissions.
As a financier, our financed emissions or attributable emissions, portfolio emissions, you can kind of refer to it as either way, are certainly our material emissions. We have made strides towards reducing our Scope 1 and Scope 2 , which would be our smaller amounts and our contribution to our emissions, but is ultimately the emissions from our office space. We've done that by, in 2023, relocating our head office to a building with higher standards for environmental management and has actually received a few awards for its sustainability. That's one way in which we're addressing climate change. This year was really our focus was on understanding our financed emissions so that we could then start to have more informed discussions at the management level on how we want to address it.
So through that analysis, we did find that through the production in 2023, we've released 259 tons of CO2, which isn't actually a lot, relatively speaking. That's about 62 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven on the road for one year. But I think for investors, a more meaningful metric is how do we compare against peers. So we've looked at our carbon intensity of our portfolio for our financed emissions. And from that, we've discovered that we release about 0.25 tons of CO2 per GEO. And then as we looked at the emissions of those other royalty and streaming companies that are reporting against this, we found that we actually have one of the lowest financed emission carbon intensities.
And I think the reason for that is a bit of actually a demonstration of the resiliency that's baked into our strategy with our focus on precious metals, working with high-quality assets and well-capitalized partners, and then also operating in safe jurisdictions. And then on the screen and the table at the bottom, you can see that of the assets that were huge contributors to our production in 2023, many of them, actually all of them, have emission reduction targets and are already making significant strides towards reducing their emissions. So I think that that's an important advantage that we already have in the lower carbon intensity, but it's certainly something that we'll continue to monitor and report on as we go forward. And then finally, a plug for our sustainability report, which is now on our website, as Dave mentioned, alongside the asset handbook.
But there's certainly more detail on all of this available for you there, and happy to also discuss this in the Q&A. All right. I'll pass it over to John.
Thanks, Katherine. My name is John Griffith, and I'm the Chief Development Officer of Gold Royalty. What that means is my primary function, an area of responsibility, is to execute on our growth and M&A strategy. Today, I will share with you why growth is important and how we go about executing our growth strategy. I'll also highlight the several transactions that we've closed since our investor day last May and focus on how those transactions have transformed our near-medium and long-term growth outlook.
It's been established beyond doubt that our sector benefits from capital markets and operating scale, which combine to drive increased trading liquidity, higher valuations, and a lower cost of capital, creating a virtual cycle in which capital can be more efficiently deployed on an accreted basis to drive growth. By striving to create critical scale and becoming investable to meaningful institutions, the re-rate potential is significant if we achieve a multiple approaching that of the seniors of around 2x net asset value. What will drive this re-rate? Beyond the question of scale, at present, we believe the market is favoring current cash flow over growth. We have peer-leading growth over the next several years, and this growth is underpinned by assets that are not only among the largest gold mines in North America, but also mines that will produce gold for many decades.
This is a clear differentiating feature for our company. We could turn to the next slide. What helps to set our growth strategy apart from the majority of our peers are four fundamental pillars of growth. Some of our peers focus on one or two, and in some limited cases, three of these four pillars of growth, but none focus on all four. The first pillar of growth I'd like to highlight is where we provide primary capital to an operator to fund the development or expansion of a project or mine. Royalty and streaming has become a mainstream source of capital to the mining industry. The equity and debt markets fluctuate over time depending upon macro fundamentals, as well as individual investors' desire for exposure to development risk. Within the mining industry, our subsector provides a very competitive and steady source of capital for operating companies.
Given royalty and streaming companies typically trade at higher multiples to reflect the benefits of the business model, namely no exposure to operating and capital costs, with continued upside to exploration and expansion successes coupled with diversification, we are able to provide a steady source of capital on an accretive basis. Financing transactions typically require cash consideration given the primary objective of the counterparties, and we can tailor and structure the terms to meet the needs of a counterparty while mitigating risk to Gold Royalty. A recent example of such a transaction was our investment in Ora's Borborema project. The next pillar I'd like to highlight is acquiring third-party royalties. These are royalties acquired from existing royalty holders, such as mining companies, landowners, or prospectors.
For these royalty holders, a sale to Gold Royalty offers the ability to monetize and daylight value for assets that would otherwise be non-core and illiquid assets. Depending on the preference of the seller, we're able to offer cash, stock, or a mix of both as consideration, providing the sellers who opt for stock with continued exposure to the divested royalty, but within a larger, more diversified portfolio of assets. By way of example, in the past year, we acquired a cash-flowing royalty on Capstone's Cozamin mine in Mexico from Endeavor Silver for cash consideration. More recently, a cash-flowing copper stream on Adriatic Metals' Vares project in Bosnia from Orion, but for a mix of cash and stock consideration.
The third pillar of growth is corporate M&A, which has been a big driver of growth for Gold Royalty, helping to establish solid foundations upon which we will continue to grow our business. In addition to acquiring great assets, corporate M&A drives increased scale, lower cost of capital, and G&A synergies. Despite a wave of consolidation in the past few years, there are, by our estimates, more than 30 private and public royalty and streaming companies globally. With this in mind, we believe there is need for further consolidation over time. The fourth and final pillar of growth that I'd like to highlight today is organic royalty generation. This is the lowest-cost way to generate royalties, providing near-infinite potential returns over time. In fact, we generate revenue by structuring these transactions with upfront and ongoing payments, which generate meaningful revenue and cash flow for Gold Royalty on an ongoing basis.
Our main area of focus for organic royalty generation is in Nevada and spearheaded by Jerry Baughman, who joined the team after the Ely Gold Royalties' transaction in June of 2021. Since then, we've generated over 40 royalties, many on highly prospective land packages with some of the world's leading mining companies. Turning to the next slide and continuing with the theme of potential for growth, we recently entered into a strategic partnership with one of the industry's leading mining finance groups, Taurus. The three-year agreement with the Taurus Mining Royalty Fund provides a framework for cooperation on potential co-investment opportunities. The agreement grants each party the right, but not the obligation, to invest between 25%-50% in select asset transactions with a value equal to or greater than $30 million.
Future dispositions of interests acquired by a co-investment partner through the arrangement will be subject to rights of first offer to the other co-investment partner. The benefits to Gold Royalty of this agreement really provide additional sources of potential transactions, access to both larger and higher-quality assets and transactions than would otherwise be feasible on a standalone basis, access to new and complementary geographic regions, a potential avenue for access to capital through the Taurus financing arm, and ultimately a strategic partnership with a leading financier to the global mining sector. Turning to the next slide, when we shared our perspectives with you at our investor day last year, we spoke of how the market was favoring current cash flow over growth and that our peer-leading growth profile was being discounted as a result of this focus. I repeated this theme in my commentary today.
In response to this market dynamic, we set a strategic objective to prioritize and focus on acquiring quality cash-flowing assets to enhance our near-term cash flow. I'm pleased to say that in response, we've successfully closed three transactions that most definitively contribute to achieving this goal. In July 2023, we acquired a royalty on Cozamin, followed by the Borborema transaction in December, which provides cash flow in the form of pre-production and gold-linked coupon payments. Then most recently, we closed on the acquisition of the copper stream on Adriatic Metals' Vares silver project. This is a significant achievement for Gold Royalty, given our size and given the highly competitive sector in which we operate.
Together, these transactions will add between 30%-70% to our annual gold-equivalent ounces over the next four years, effectively bridging the gap to the peer-leading growth embedded within our existing portfolio over the remainder of this decade. This additional revenue will help to address this market dynamic of favoring cash versus growth and drives a strong argument for a meaningful re-rating of Gold Royalty equity. We will have positive cash flow this year, and importantly, that cash flow will grow significantly over the medium and long term as some of our key assets really start to ramp up production in a material way.
Turning to the next slide, these three positions that I've just highlighted, as I mentioned, add meaningfully to our near-medium and long-term growth and collectively provide a robust cash flow bridge to that ramp of production at, for example, Côté and Canadian Malartic Odyssey project. We started the company just over three years ago with 18 royalties on great assets, but none of which had line of sight to cash flow. In that relatively short time frame, we've grown the portfolio by more than 220 additional assets and, importantly, now have seven producing or cash-flowing assets, the majority of which are world-class multi-decade mines operated by top-tier mining companies. Our portfolio is organic in the sense that many of the assets are moving forward in the very capable hands of some of the world's leading, well-capitalized, and socially responsible mining companies, as noted at the bottom of this page.
As our key top-tier operating partners work to move these assets along the development pipeline, they become increasingly valuable without Gold Royalty having to raise any additional capital or incur any additional costs. And with that, I'm now going to hand over to Peter for additional comments.
Thanks, John. So building on John's point and before diving into some of the specific asset updates on the key royalties you see on this page, I want to reiterate the optionality that's inherent within this portfolio. With 240+ royalties, we often focus on those in the cash-flowing and development stage buckets, those where we see a line of sight to production, a line of sight to revenue. But it's that optionality in the exploration and advanced exploration stage buckets of our portfolio that provide that upside that can provide outsized returns within a royalty and streaming vehicle.
Given the quality of operators and the quality of jurisdictions that we're in, we've seen immense exploration investment across the portfolio over the past several years. In fact, we've seen over 2 million meters of drilling alone across the underlying properties, again, all at no cost to Gold Royalty. Even through a tougher equity market in 2024 for junior miners, we're still seeing over 400,000 meters of drilling expected across the portfolio. Now, this exploration investment into the portfolio does not drive necessarily immediate cash flow accretion or immediate resource growth. This is more of a leading indicator to the catalysts we see coming up in the portfolio. An example of this are assets like Granite Creek, where we've seen incredible exploration results over the past several years.
Now in 2024, we're expecting to see that first mineral resource estimate for the South Pacific Zone and having that deposit incorporated into an overall mine plan. So there is a lead time from this exploration investment into tangible value accretion, but it is really a strong leading indicator that there are a lot of exciting catalysts coming up across our portfolio. This is just a proxy for overall exploration investment, but other activities across the portfolio include advancing mining studies, advancing projects from PEA to PFS, social initiatives, as Katherine spoke about earlier, permitting work. So our operators are doing a lot of good things, and we like to highlight just how much money is going into the ground on our underlying portfolio.
To speak to some of those upcoming catalysts in a bit more detail, the next 6-18 months is going to be a very dynamic time for the company, not only from the recent acquisitions we've done, but some of the organic catalysts across the portfolio from those acquisitions in 2021. Our Cornerstone Royalty Odyssey is really ramping up towards 2028. They have started initial underground mining there in 2023, but the Canadian Malartic Complex shifting to a full underground operation in 2028 is where we see that major step change at the Odyssey mine. Côté, an acquisition we made in 2022, first gold pour achieved in Q1 of this year and ramping up towards commercial production in Q3. This is going to be a major catalyst for us.
Canada's third largest gold mine once fully ramped up, and our 0.75% NSR covers a meaningful portion of that deposit, which I'll talk to in more detail later on. Borden, continuing to operate, going deeper and deeper underground, increasing our royalty coverage. Borborema, acquisition made last December. We're receiving initial coupon payments from our gold-linked loan and pre-production payments from the royalty, but it's in early 2025 where we see that asset enter production and our royalty have another step change in revenue growth early next year. Vares, the most recent acquisition, I'll speak to this in more detail, but as John spoke to on the contribution of those recent acquisitions to our overall revenue profile, massively accretive to our revenue and cash flow per share and an asset we're very excited to be a part of with Adriatic doing incredible work there.
As we look out a little bit further, 2025, 2026, 2027, I spoke to Borborema. County Line is a smaller asset in Nevada, so some supplemental revenue there. It's those a few smaller assets here and there that can move the needle that maybe are not as material individually. The last big asset I would highlight is Ren. We've had a team at site at Ren, and Alastair will speak to it in more detail later on. This is an exceptional high-grade satellite deposit to the Gold Strike complex that we see supplementing our near-term revenue profile. After that site visit, our team was very excited and increased our confidence significantly on the line of sight to potential production there. One last point, just highlighting the pie charts on this slide as well.
One of the questions we've got post-Vares is, are you focused on copper now? Is this a shift in strategy? I think it's important to note that while Vares is massively accretive to near-term revenue and cash flow, the overall position of the portfolio is relatively unchanged. We are still vastly predominant precious metals focused with over 90% of our book value in gold. We're still anchored in Quebec, Ontario, Nevada, North American-focused assets. Recent investments have been in Brazil and now Bosnia, but on a portfolio basis, still vastly North American-focused. Diving into the portfolio in a bit more detail, I'll start with our recent acquisitions before getting into the organic growth. Speaking to Vares in a bit more detail, operated by Adriatic Metals, ASX-listed company and located in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
They achieved first concentrate sales earlier this year and are ramping up towards production in Q4. The current mine life is 18 years. This is a silver zinc mine predominantly, polymetallic, as you see with the resource estimate at the bottom. There's several aspects of that that we find very attractive. Very low operating costs. This is one of the lowest-cost silver mines in the world and a very long mine life. The current mine life, 18 years, based on 13.8 million tons of reserves. If you look down at the mineral resource estimate, you see 18.3 million tons of indicated, another 2.8 million tons of inferred. So the potential to extend that mine life through resource conversion is very exciting. They're continuing to explore the district and the property. The main deposit, Rupice at Vares, remains open along strike then at depth.
The opportunity to grow that resource more and extend the mine life further is also there. The stream terms, 100% of the copper. As you'll see in the mineral resource estimate, copper is a relatively small portion of the overall mine plan. Only 2% of expected revenue is within the copper. It's not encumbering the assets too much by taking the copper. Our ongoing payments are 30% of the LME spot price. The fixed payability factor within the stream is 24.5%. Of the recovered copper from the mine, we are paid on 24.5%. This is a common feature. You're seeing Wheaton Incorporated in a lot of their new streams, as well as fixing that payability factor within the saleable concentrate to avoid potential metallurgical risk or differences in the offtake agreement. I've had a few questions about that and wanted to clarify there.
A key area of upside and building on Bosnia a bit is how well Adriatic has delivered within country. They acquired the asset in 2017, defined the resource, advanced mining studies, and now having just achieved production are really set to ramp up later this year and achieve commercial production, achieving 800,000 tons per annum as their target in 2025. But a key area of upside where we see it is the potential to expand that to 1 million tons per year. Given the larger resource, the exploration upside, they're looking at ways to ramp up that mining rate. So that could be a 25% increase in annual throughput. Two other important points about Adriatic as an operator, not just them delivering on that timeline production and potential upside, is they're a well-capitalized company. They've got great backing.
It's held in quite high regard through Europe and Australia, albeit somewhat lesser known to some North American investors given their ASX listing only. They recently raised capital, so have a strong balance sheet to deliver on the ramp-up later this year. And then have done an exceptional job in country obtaining social license in Bosnia to operate. Bosnia is a lesser-known mining jurisdiction, but that doesn't mean it's not a favorable place for them to be operating. They've represented about 25% of foreign direct investment in 2022 through their construction and investment in the Vares project. And once up and fully running, it's expected to contribute close to 2% of national GDP. Importantly, Adriatic has developed a very strong relationship with the local community, local governments, and has that expertise to deliver at this asset.
So it's something that's supported quite closely by the government, by local communities, and a strong operator to deliver on that mine plan. Bosnia, as a country as well, is an applicant country to join the EU, similar to neighboring Croatia, Slovenia, within the former Yugoslavia. It's on the docket to enter that economic union and be part of a more familiar jurisdiction for some investors. So we did a lot of due diligence with this asset and are quite comfortable with how things are tracking. Moving on from Vares, and I think John spoke to the revenue contribution in detail, but happy to build upon that. I'd highlight our other recent cash-flowing acquisition, that being the Borborema project. Now, Borborema is, call it a low-hanging fruit in terms of a development stage project.
Very attractive grade, low strip ratio, low CapEx build with a team at Ora Minerals, similar to Adriatic, where we did a lot of due diligence on the operator and their track record. Ora similarly came off the construction of the Almas mine in Brazil late last year. That construction team was then transitioning to Borborema. They're well advanced on track for production early next year. This investment will have a step change in our revenue profile as it enters production. Similar to Vares, the key component in all investments we make is not just running the economics at base case reserve mine plan at consensus commodity prices, but seeing that potential for upside. Similar to the expansion and exploration potential at Vares, Borborema similarly has that expansion potential.
Only 748,000 ounces incorporated into the current feasibility study mine plan, but with close to 2.5 million ounces on a combined resource basis. So running our economics, we achieve attractive rates of return on both investments just on that base case. But it's through that expansion, through that additional resource conversion that comes at no cost to us as a royalty company that you see that potential for outsized returns, even if you keep the commodity price stable where it is today. And those are the types of investments we've really endeavored, achieving strong rates of return immediately, but with free exploration upside. That's really what you're looking for in a royalty and streaming model. So building on our investment specifically, since it is somewhat nuanced and has a few moving parts, walking through the Borborema investment, the first component is a 2% NSR.
2% NSR on the majority of the mine life, stepping down to a 0.5% royalty after the initial reserve mine plan. But importantly, before it enters production, we are receiving 1,000 ounces per year until that commercial production is achieved. This provides us immediate cash flow and also de-risks the potential if there was ever a delay in Borborema reaching commercial production. We achieve those pre-production payments up to a maximum of 10 years or commercial production being achieved. Now, I mentioned the step down within the royalty towards the end of the reserve mine life. In contrast to that, we also incorporated a Gold Linked Royalty Convertible Loan into this financing package.
So a $10 million Gold-Linked Loan, which is payable in 440 ounces of gold equivalent payments per year, which since we've made this investment at the end of 2023, has provided quite outsized returns given where the commodity has gone. And importantly, at the end of the mine life, after the six-year term, we have the option to convert half of the principal, half of the $10 million principal of that Gold-Linked Loan into an additional 0.5% royalty. So we're able to increase our exposure to the asset if that exploration upside that we see is coming to fruition and that additional resource conversion is happening within the Borborema Project. So creative structure like Vares, immediate cash flow, lots of exploration upside, and a very accretive deal that we achieved late last year.
Now, finally, speaking to the Cozamin acquisition deal we did late middle of last year, acquiring a 1% NSR over Capstone's high-grade Cozamin mine from Endeavor Silver. It was non-core for Endeavor. They were looking to monetize that position. Cozamin, it's been producing since 2006, high-grade underground mine. And at that time, it had a relatively short mine life, I believe only five or six years. And it's always been about exploration success at Cozamin. The current reserve mine plan extends till 2030. And we've been receiving, and historically, the royalty has produced approximately $1 million per year, albeit at much lower copper prices. And we see that forecast going forward as well. But as a similar trait to Vares, Borborema, it's the exploration upside at Cozamin that gets us quite excited.
There's incremental resources to be incorporated into that mine plan, but there's also been significant exploration investment at the Mala Noche vein and Mala Noche footwall zone, which would directly benefit our royalty given our coverage here. It's the two purple claims you see in the middle of this map. And the vein is in the, I'd call it the northwest corner of our royalty coverage area there. Finally, one other common thread in addition to the exploration upside on these three recent acquisitions is the quality of the assets. All three are within the first quartile on the cost curve within their respective commodities, silver, gold, and copper. And that just speaks to the quality of asset that we're looking to invest in. It's not just about the base case.
It's about the expiration upside and also the resiliency for these assets to continue to produce and run along despite whatever commodity environment they're facing. Building upon those three recent acquisitions, we'll dive into some of the more organic catalysts of our existing portfolio. I'm sure most are aware of Odyssey, Côté, Ren. We'll speak to those in more detail now. Still the largest royalty within our portfolio, our 3% NSR over a significant portion of the Odyssey underground mine. Our royalty covers the Odyssey North deposit, the majority of the East Malartic deposit, as well as a portion of the Odyssey South deposit and the Nori Zone. Importantly, Agnico Eagle's internal zones at Odyssey South are incorporated within that Odyssey South deposit. They lie between the Odyssey North and Odyssey South deposits.
We also have a patchwork of royalties surrounding the Canadian Malartic Complex, as you see on the screen here. A 1.5% NSR on Midway, the old Malartic goldfields, which lies directly to the southeast of the Canadian Malartic Complex. That's an area that Agnico has continued to explore, looking for supplemental feed to what will be a starved mill as they transition to an underground operation. That is the main focus of Agnico Eagle. Their main deposit is East Goldie within the Odyssey underground mine plan, but they're still only envisioning a 20,000-ton-per-day operation. The potential to expand that mining rate, incorporate additional resources into the mine plan, is going to be a significant benefit to Gold Royalty given the large underlying resource that we have. In the near term, the Nori zones are a key area of upside.
I'll expand on that and give you a bit more detail on where our royalty is actually benefiting from it at this mine. Briefly covering some of the recent developments, the updated mine study for the Odyssey underground mine was published last June. It outlined that Odyssey South, which has already achieved production in March 2023, will be an incremental contributor to the overall complex over the next several years. The main component there that would benefit Gold Royalty is the internal zones, which have started to have been delineated and starting to be incorporated into the mine plan, but will really kick in towards 2026-2028 based on the most recent guidance from Agnico Eagle. Where our royalty really starts to kick in is the Odyssey North and the East Malartic deposit.
Odyssey North is expected to commence in 2028 based on the June 2023 updated mine plan, ramping up towards 3,500 tons per day that year. The grades at Odyssey North and East Malartic are just north of 2 grams per ton. East Malartic, which currently lies underneath the Barnat Pit primarily, would be incorporated into the mine plan after the open pit mining has been completed. So after 2028, the completed mining note, the open pit, the East Malartic deposit would then be incorporated into the mine plan. The current plan envisions that in 2023, ramping up towards 3,200 tons per day that year. I mentioned Midway, exploration upside. This is the potential to be incorporated later in the mine plan. But we view the potential for the internal zones as something to really supplement the near-term production.
The key areas of upside beyond that are resource conversion or increasing mining rates. So to that point, you can see on this map here, the maps on the right, a brief overview of the different deposits, East Malartic, Odyssey North, Odyssey South, and East Goldie, and the shaft as a key reference with relation to the deposit. Importantly, with our royalty coverage, the shaft is just within the southern boundary of our royalty. It's an important proxy or important reference point to refer to where the gold royalty coverage is. You can see on the cross section just below that the shaft is just going through Odyssey South, through the southern side of the internal zones, and then the Odyssey North deposit lies to the north of the shaft.
If you use that line, you can see the majority of the internal zones are reporting into gold royalties coverage areas. So we're quite excited for those to be further delineated and to supplement our production profile in the near term. Development is tracking on budget, actually ahead of schedule in a few areas with underground development, currently at a depth of 765 meters, and shaft sinking is going quite well. They're looking to be able to access hoisting capacity by mid-2025, which gives them additional flexibility in developing and exploring the underground at Odyssey. This year's exploration program is focused on conversion drilling at East Goldie and testing the immediate extensions of East Goldie, which our Nori Zone is close to a portion of. The northwestern extension of East Goldie approaches the southwestern corner of our royalty.
So we're excited to see the potential for additional resource delineation there. But then importantly, conversion of drilling at Odyssey South and expanding the internal zones are going to directly benefit our royalty coverage in the near term, and then improving the resource category at Odyssey North. Moving ahead, I've highlighted the excess mill capacity at Odyssey. It's really the key area of upside. And not only by incorporating neighboring deposits, incorporating additional resources into that mine plan to extend it, but the potential to increase mining rates. Before the asset was fully consolidated by Agnico, Yamana, the joint venture partner there, was a bit more aggressive in their disclosure on what the potential was for the Odyssey mine and the Canadian Malartic Complex. And there has been some hints at a second or even a potential third shaft, which would vastly increase the mining rates.
They could see the potential of that mine plan at Odyssey from going from 500,000 ounces a year closer to 1 million ounces per year through those increased rates. So there's nothing definitive in Agnico's public domain, but it is something that has been disclosed as a potential area of upside in historical disclosure on the asset. All that said, things are tracking. The plan is only getting more positive. Things are moving ahead of schedule, ahead of budget. And we see the same large upside at Odyssey that we've always reiterated. Again, this is just reiterating what I outlined, internal zones in the midterm. And then we know we are very confident in the Odyssey North and East Malartic deposits coming online towards the end of this decade.
Moving ahead to the Côté Gold Project, achieved commercial or expected to achieve commercial production later this year with first gold pour achieved in Q1 of 2024. Going to be Canada's third largest gold mine once fully ramped up. Our 0.75% NSR covers a meaningful portion of the pit, especially the high-grade phase one portion of the pit, which I'll provide a bit more detail on within these slides. Guidance for 2024 is relatively modest as they're ramping up the asset, although they do have a strong stockpile position to fill through the mill here in 2024. Having spoken with the IAMGOLD senior management team, things are looking quite strong. They're very excited to have that commercial production milestone achieved later this year. Similar to these other assets that Dave and John have emphasized, assets like Vares, this is a very long mine life.
Assets like Odyssey with 20+ years of mine life. Côté's mine plan is 18 years, again, based on reserves alone. We see the potential for expansion upside given the underlying resources of the current pit. To dive into a bit more detail, and as I mentioned, our royalty covers zones 5 and 7. We've overlaid the royalty footprint on the map on the left over the open pit block model to show where the mineral resource is within the pit relative to our royalty coverage. You can see a large portion of the measured higher-grade material is underneath our royalty coverage area. If you look at the 3D model on the right, this is from IAMGOLD's virtual presentation, you can see that same phenomenon with a lot of this higher-grade phase one material reporting into our royalty.
Now, this diagonal plan view of the Côté pit shows the different phases. It's at a slightly different orientation. From this angle, you're looking towards the southeast with the southern edge of the pit at the top right of these pictures. You can see in phase one, the map on the left, that phase one of the pit is fully focused on the southern edge of the pit. That is where our royalty coverage area is. All of the stripping associated with that production is towards our royalty coverage area. This is why we are so confident to see initial production from the Côté pit early in the mine life. As we advance to phase two, which is after approximately the sixth year of the mine life, is where you start to see the pit develop towards the north, away from our royalty coverage area.
So we're seeing that initial production, as our head engineer likes to say, we have the plum of this deposit. It's the most attractive component from a grade perspective. And we're very excited to see this be a meaningful portion of our revenue in the back half of this year and especially in 2025, benefiting from a full year of production. And then, as I mentioned, there's upside at Côté as well. This is the current mineral resource associated around the pit shell. And a lot of the higher-grade mineralization plunges well below the bottom of the pit. While there would be increased stripping once they're down that far, there is the potential to incorporate additional mineral resources into this mine plan at depth. So we're quite excited not only by the current 18 years we see ahead of us, but the potential to expand beyond that.
So with that, I'd pass it on to Alastair Still to speak to some of our other key assets, the geological upside. And as our lead geologist, he'll be able to speak more eloquently on that upside than I can. So, Alastair, over to you. Excellent.
Thanks, Peter. And pleasure to be here. Again, Alastair Still. I'm the Director of Technical Services with Gold Royalty Corp. There's about a handful of assets I would like to highlight as key development projects for the company. And you'll probably start to recognize a very familiar pattern here. Each of these assets is in an established, very solid top-tier jurisdiction led by established operators and developers with a bright and bountiful future in terms of exploration and potential to grow the resources. And the best place to start on that front is with our Ren project.
This is a key asset that we acquired through our transaction with Ely a couple of years ago. This is, of course, in Nevada, occurring on the Carlin Trend. It's operated by Nevada Gold Mines. You couldn't ask for a better operating entity, which is, of course, the joint venture between Barrick and Newmont, with Barrick being the operator here. We have a very significant royalty on this property. It's a 1.5% NSR and as well as having a 3.5% NPI. All that bodes very well as effectively we have the on-strike or downtrend extension of the massive Gold Strike deposit occurs on the Ren property.
If we look a little closer at the property map on the left, the Ren property outlined, you can see the red outlines of some of the key zones and the areas targeting exploration, particularly the JB Zone, the JB shear, an area of focus where the resource is at present. Most of the current resource has quite recently been published. It's primarily inferred, but there is some 7.4 million tons at a very strong underground development grade, 6.6 grams per ton for some 1.6 million ounces. We certainly see the potential to grow that further. An additional opportunity here, which helps de-risk this project, is the established infrastructure. We see some of the established infrastructure on the right side of the slide here. Having that existing infrastructure means this project can be developed and brought into production that much sooner to the benefit of our account.
But beyond the existing resource, which has been recently published and the existing infrastructure, we're really quite excited by the exploration potential here. That's really what is driving excitement here. We can see on the image on the right-hand side, there is an underground development platform, which is facilitating underground drilling, some of the key intercepts that have already been encountered. Seeing such grades and widths as 45.7 meters at 32.54 grams per ton, another hole with 36.6 meters at 13.95 grams per ton. And you can see extreme widths at exceptional grades, certainly not only has us excited, but of course, the operators and Nevada Gold Mines very excited about this as well. We are expecting further developments on this, further announcements as they develop the results into a pre-feasibility study and putting this into a 10-year mine plan.
This is something we expect to see with resource updates and coming up in the next probably year or two as this project is advanced further. And certainly has been an area for our site visits, good relationship with the operators here, and acknowledging that we already have 1.6 million ounces here of a high-grade underground resource, strong opportunity to advance that and grow that with additional drilling that is ongoing. Staying in the wonderful state of Nevada, just shifting a little to the northwest, I touched briefly on our Granite Creek royalty. This is a 10% NPI, and we actually acquired this royalty from Nevada Gold Mines. And this is being operated by i-80 Gold Corp. And it's like Ren. It's a property we're very excited by the opportunity to grow and increase production and increase resources on.
It has an underground and an open pit resource that were published as part of a 2021 PEA study. That study envisions processing with a heap leach pad and also trucking to a nearby facility for processing some of the underground ores. So potential for both open pit and underground, although i-80 has been very much focused with drilling for underground targets. And the underground is, in fact, in development. It's fully permitted, ready to go. And 2022, they drilled some 25,000 meters. Additional drilling in 2023, and drilling continues into 2024. And as you can see on the slide here, the grade of this underground resource is certainly an exceptional grade, one that i-80 is excited about, as are we. Looking at some of that development, much of the drilling has focused on the South Pacific Zone.
That's largely the area shown in red on the schematic long section on the right-hand side of the page. Development is progressing, and development is occurring to the different structures. i-80 is in process of ramping up to about 1,000 tons per day as the projected processing rate or production rate. And as late as last year, they were just shy of 600 tons per day in development. And that number will increase as additional stopes and development occurs, moving it forward. So we start to see that development throughout this year. And South Pacific Zone becomes a catalyst for the attention. And you can see from the schematic here that many of the holes were targeted from drilling from surface. Those holes were getting quite long and challenging from the underground development.
There are new platforms being established for the drilling as providing opportunities to drill this in greater density to bring it towards production. And you can see highlighting some of the drill results there, such as 21.9 meters at 31.1 grams per ton. High grades, good, strong, established continuous widths have us very excited about Granite Creek as it moves towards production. There is a small production hurdle, 120,000-ounce hurdle that needs to be cleared before the royalty kicks in. And really, we think that was probably established when the royalty was set up as an approximation for paying back of capital as it is an NPI royalty. And shifting from one good jurisdiction to the next, moving from Nevada up to Quebec, I touched briefly on our royalty that we have on the Fenelon Gold Project, which is operated by Wallbridge. It's a 2% NSR over the entire property.
It's a sizable resource, which has just come out with a 2023 PEA study, which envisioned production just over 200,000 ounces per year for some 12 years. So good, long, steady state of production at good, solid grades for a bulk scale underground proposed operation. And one of the things that has us encouraged about the property is not just the exploration potential and the drilling that has been occurring, but also by a very established management team led by Chairman Tony Makuch, who may be a familiar name to people on this call today. Tony, of course, was the CEO of Kirkland Lake Gold, which was acquired by Agnico Eagle. And Tony is an established mine builder, mine operator, has been GM at such projects as the Macassa mine and Kirkland Lake and Hoyle Pond mine and Timmins.
So very supportive we are of such a strong management team with a very prospective exploration potential at Fenelon. As we look at the generalities of the geology, it's a large property with a good, solid resource. The PEA did come out just in 2023 with good, solid cash costs and low-end all-in sustaining costs, with, of course, an opportunity to further expand on that. Total on this property, there's been over 500,000 meters of drilling. So it has been extensively drilled. And if one were to use a typical global average, somewhere near $400 per meter for drilling, it really shows the true value we've been able to capture here with a royalty. And as David mentioned earlier, we, of course, don't contribute to exploration costs. We only benefit from the upside in them.
This particular part of Quebec is not as well established as perhaps a household name, which occurs some 80 kilometers to the west of here, is the Detour Lake operation, which, of course, is one of Canada's largest gold mines. Actually, it is Canada's largest gold mine and has been in that top two position for a number of years now. So an established geological trend, we're on strike for it, being run by an established team, creating value, moving forward with exploration. The next project in our list is one that is also in the drilling stage. We're going to shift down to South America, to Brazil, a project owned by Gold Mining Inc. Gold Royalty has a 1% NSR on the San Jorge project. This is in Pará State, in the northeastern part of the country.
It's an area that's been getting quite a bit of attention lately because one of the near neighbors here, some 70 kilometers away into the jungle, much more remote site, is the Tocantinzinho project, which G Mining Ventures have been successfully bringing towards production and have just recently announced starting to commission the mill. So a great development for the region, really helping put a lot of eyes and attention down here. One of the things that's very encouraging about San Jorge is the geological potential, but also the strong infrastructure. The project is located approximately one kilometer from paved major highway. Now the 138 kV power line that was built for Tocantinzinho also crosses the property. So with infrastructure, exploration potential, and a diamond drilling program, which was just recently announced starting, has us very excited.
The property itself has had a good concentration of drilling on the main resource. There's a geological trend that has had the vast majority of drilling focused on only a 1.4-kilometer strike length, most, if not all of the 37,000 meters in the property focused on that one area, which, of course, means that there's enormous potential across the property, which hasn't seen a lot of exploration. And with the property being some 46,000 hectares in size, most of that has been underexplored. So we believe GoldMining is quite excited by this, and we're very encouraged to see that we just started an exploration program recently on this project. So we look forward to seeing those results.
In the meantime, one of the key elements that Gold Mining has been talking up on this is that for quite a significant resource in terms of grade and being at surface, San Jorge is probably really just the touch of just the tip of the iceberg in terms of where the property could be. There's been an extensive multi-year program now to collect geochemical analysis and soil sampling. Compilation of that has been led by Tim Smith, of course, who is an established director of exploration for Newmont, the world's largest gold mining company. He came within the last 2 years to work with Gold Mining. So doing some excellent work there, generating targets and a very large footprint now showing up at some 12 by 7 kilometers. So very encouraged by the exploration potential and the drilling ongoing by Gold Mining at the San Jorge property.
Shifting from the south to the north to talk about one last project. This is an extensive gold and copper project. This is the Whistler Gold-Copper Project, owned now by U.S. GoldMining Inc., which was spun off from GoldMining Inc. just over a year ago. It raised cash and launched the company on the NASDAQ to explore Whistler and develop it and advance it. Gold Royalty Corp has a 1% NSR on this property with an option on a buyback to acquire an additional 0.75%. It is a gold-focused property, but has a significant concentration of copper as well. Approximately 30% or up to a third of the projected revenue comes from copper on the project. So a very important strategic component of copper. And you can see from the size of the resource here, very sizable, 3 million ounces in the indicated.
These are gold equivalent ounces in the inferred category, almost 6.5 million gold equivalent ounces. So a very sizable project, very near to the largest center in Alaska, which is Anchorage. It's just over 100 miles from Anchorage. The property itself has a number of exploration targets in addition to the known resources. The company was cashed up last year with just over $20 million. Start of this year, I think still was about $11 million left. So cashed up for a second season of exploration, a project that hasn't seen exploration before last year's program in some 10 years.
So at Gold Royalty, we're looking forward to seeing the results of that exploration proving up and expanding on a high-grade core, as well as looking for potential game-changing steps, which will be the discovery of additional gold copper porphyry systems in a zone which is known as the Whistler Orbit on a satellite of deposits around the main Whistler deposit itself. The company, U.S. GoldMining, has announced that they are putting teams in the field, and they're gearing up for the 2024 exploration drilling season now. One attribute of this project, which remains very exciting for us as a royalty holder and from the operators, is the high-grade nature of the core of this. There's consistent high-grade mineralization occurring at over one gram per ton gold equivalent. And it's concentric zoning, typical zoned porphyry. That zone remains open at depth.
And in fact, one of the holes drilled last year by the operators here finished at the end of the season when things started to freeze up. It was down to 600 meters depth and still wide open in mineralization. It's possible the mineralization can extend further. And as many people familiar with these styles of deposits know, these types of deposits can go down from 1-2 kilometers. And oftentimes, there will be a resource occurring beneath potential open-pittable resources. And that's still an open target here at Whistler. Beautiful terrain. You can see on the right-hand side here, gently rolling hills, perfect situation for exploring this. The camp is located just a couple of kilometers by a trail here. So it's easily accessible in an area that has drilled 12 months of the year.
So we're looking forward to seeing the results as they come out from U.S. GoldMining on their Whistler Gold-Copper Project in Alaska. And certainly, to highlight a few of those holes that U.S. GoldMining had announced just this past year from the 2023 season, something they look to build on, I would highlight their hole Whistler 23-03, which was the best interval of continuous mineralization in the history of the project. That intercepted 547 meters at just over one gram per ton gold equivalent. And as I pointed out, that hole was open at depth. The last 10+ meters were still running over one gram per ton. And the mineralization also continued right to surface. So encouraging news on that project and many of these other projects. And the exploration is a side that keeps us all excited here.
So with that introduction to these projects, I will pass it back over to Dave for a conclusion.
Thanks, Alastair. And thanks to everybody on the team today that contributed to what I thought was a very fulsome presentation on the business. And I think the potential of the business, both financially and from an exploration standpoint, this is a pivotal year for us. I really need to reiterate that. We are pivoting into free cash flow and earnings territory for the first time. And that's a remarkable achievement for a startup company. They only IPO'd with 18 assets, non-cash flowing assets three years ago. And so I think that's an exciting development, a potential for significant re-rate as we start to achieve those financial results for the first time in our history with significant growth to come right through the end of the decade.
That growth in cash flow and earnings is coming as a result of the significant growth within our portfolio. It's bought and paid for, but also significant cost containment exercises that we undertook as a result of the post-merger integration efforts with the three companies we absorbed over 2021. We've focused on really both sides of the ledger, as it were, in the P&L statement, both in terms of revenue and growing our revenue, both the short, medium term, but also making sure that our costs are contained so that we can widen our margins as much as possible.
But the other element of this that I think is important, you only really get a flavor for this when we do these annual town hall meetings and we get into a bit more detail on the individual assets, is the immense exploration potential embedded in our portfolio that really is free optionality to you as shareholders. These royalties are completely bought and paid for. And as Alastair and Peter pointed out, our partners are investing on average about $200 million per annum in exploration on their underlying assets. And we're not contributing to those budgets, but we are getting the benefit of that. And as a result, the gold exposure within our portfolio and the underlying assets has grown to over 120 million ounces by consensus estimates.
So with that kind of exploration budget collectively within our portfolio, you can imagine how much more gold exposure we're going to be able to provide to us as our operating partners deliver on their exploration objectives. So with that, Joanne, we'd be delighted to take questions from our shareholders.
There we go. Thank you so much, David. And thank you, team, for a great update. As per usual, we have another full house today of interested stakeholders. So thank you, everyone, for tuning in and taking the time to tune in. We really appreciate it. Now, before we take questions, just another reminder to please place any questions you may have into the Q&A tab located at the top of your screens.
And our first question for today is, while I'm in gold for the long term and I have held a growing stock for some time, 1.5 years, as a matter of fact, I would have thought with the significant rise in gold price over the past six months, there would have been a stronger uplift in your stock price. Can you share your thoughts, please?
Yeah, there's certainly been a lagging impact, not only in our story, but I guess across the sector as well. And if you look at the dynamic behind that, and I touched on it earlier in the presentation, we haven't seen any generalist interest in the sector of any significance yet. And I think that's because of rising costs among the producers. And that's kept the generalist away from the large-scale producers. They haven't had any meaningful share price performance either.
In fact, if you look at the biggest producers in the world, their share prices are below where they were in the mid-1990s when the gold price was a tenth of where it is today because of those cost and reserve dynamics, declining reserve dynamics that I talked about earlier on in the presentation. And so there isn't a reasonable amount of conviction in the equities yet, even though the commodities performed exceptionally well. I think the commodity this year is up about 20%-25%. The GDXJ still lags that. And the GDXJ should actually be outperforming the commodity. It should be providing leverage, and it's not. And that's true for the GDX as well. So the larger cap names, the bellwether stocks, if you were, are not performing as investors would have thought in providing a leverage proposition.
But we contend that those incremental generalist dollars, when they come into the sector, inevitably, they will rotate in the sector. They always do, particularly with sustained momentum in the commodity. They'll go to the royalty players first because the royalty providers provide through their model, optimum leverage to the gold price and protection from inflation that unfortunately is quite endemic. I think inflation will continue to rear its head in the sector and really dampen performance among larger producers, larger, medium-sized, and whatnot. You're not going to get the leverage you would have expected in a more stable inflationary environment as we enjoyed for 20-odd years. But we're in a different environment right now, a different point in the cycle. And as a result, I think the best place to be is in the royalty space. And certainly, we offer peer-leading growth.
And now we're offering very strong short-term cash flow as well. So that growth that we've been advertising for three years is not only being crystallized, but also enhanced as a result of the acquisition efforts we've undertaken over the last year to bring in more cash-flowing royalties that are immediately accretive to cash flow per share.
Thank you, David. Next question. After the last investment of the copper stream, the stock seemed to decline. Do you think that's justified?
No, I mean, intrinsically, we've added value here on a per-share basis, cash flow, earnings. Even if you look at the consensus estimates among the 6 analysts that cover us, they saw this at worst as net asset value per share neutral.
But we would contend, given the long life, this is an 18-year-plus reserve life with expansion potential, none of which is baked into the valuations either by ourselves or the analysts that cover us, we see significant potential for NPV accretion. And we were using consensus gold prices of below $1,900 an ounce to evaluate this opportunity. So we are getting the leverage in the upside. And consensus copper prices, which were well below where spot is, in order to evaluate this opportunity. And of course, when your net present value cash flow is beyond a decade, you don't get any value. And that's really the difficult thing with our portfolio.
It's the great thing about our portfolio that we have these generational assets in Canadian Malartic, Côté, Ren, Borborema, Vares, all have multi-decades of reserve life ahead of them, but you don't get that benefit in a net asset value calculation. But that should, in time, be reflected in the multiple given the quality of our portfolio. And nobody among our peers has that many cornerstone assets in the portfolio. So we offer significant quality in some of the best jurisdictions in the world.
Thank you. Next question from Peterborough, Ontario. I'm curious to know what is the forward-looking guidance on dividends. I'm a young investor, and what attracted me to your company were dividends and growth.
Well, thank you for investing in us, and thank you for taking interest in us. We welcome new investors in the sector. And I'm speaking for the sector generally, not just gold royalty.
We'd like to see this kind of generational handoff among our investors as well as our people. You can see we have multiple generations within our management team as well. I see every prospect for a dividend being introduced or reintroduced into the story in the medium term. It's just a matter of getting to sustainable Free Cash Flow, which we're entering into for the first time. I can tell you that my Board is eager to have that conversation about returning capital to shareholders in various forms.
Thank you, David. Next question. If you were to acquire more assets, what is your preference for payment? Do you prefer to issue more equity or borrow more? And finally, how comfortable are you with the current debt level?
I'm going to hand that over to Andrew to answer, please.
Yeah. No, thanks for that.
Look, with future acquisitions, we will evaluate all opportunities. I mean, as I mentioned before, we do have multiple sources of capital. And it is nice to meet a position that we are generating positive free cash flow. So as we receive royalty payments that accumulate cash on our balance sheet, that's cash that can be used for corporate purposes for M&A. So that will be the easiest and most efficient source of capital, naturally. We do have a good relation with our banks, as I mentioned. Of course, we do keep a good line of sight in terms of where leverage levels are at. And any acquisition that is additive to cash flow in a meaningful way, we're able to justify additional leverage, albeit certainly keeping an eye on where that gets to. So accessing additional credit linked to cash flow-generating assets, I think, is something we can consider.
Again, when it comes to equity, it's going to be a function of where we are at the current moment in terms of where our share price is, and we'll evaluate whether it's worth using equity in those situations. And then, I guess, lastly, the relationship with Taurus is a nice one in the sense that we do have the ability to, and a good partner to potentially syndicate the acquisition price or share some of the acquisition with a partner or even seek alternative funding from that partner for acquisition. So I think we have a number of different avenues that we can draw upon. And in terms of the current level of debt that we have at the moment, I do have comfort in where we're at. We're well within any limitations that our senior credit providers have provided to us.
We're some 20% debt to total capital at the moment. We can very clearly and easily cover our financing costs with our cash flow moving forward. So at the moment, I am comfortable with where we are from a debt perspective.
Thank you. David, this is a follow-up question to your comment on inflation. They're saying inflation is a factor, but as a royalty company, you really don't play in the inflationary operations cost increases. Shouldn't inflation be nearly a non-issue for GROY and its royalty income? Am I missing something?
No, you're not missing anything at all. It's an astute observation in that you're right. Our business model protects us from inflation. That's the beauty of the model. But unfortunately, the generalists are just not participating in the gold equity market in any meaningful way. And it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Even the biggest royalty companies in the entire industry have underperformed the commodity, which is not right. It doesn't make sense. It's not intuitive. But the lack of inflow of fresh capital into the sector has kept valuations quite depressed relative to the commodity, even for the royalty players. My argument is that when the generalist capital does get allocated in the sector, we think those first incremental dollars will go into the royalty space because it's the lowest-risk way to play gold and get leverage to gold on an unmitigated basis and leverage to exploration without having to pay for it. But thank you for that question.
Thank you. In respect to the great assets you have in your portfolio and the depressed share price of GROY, do you see a risk of being taken over by a larger royalty company or merger?
Yeah.
We think that consolidating is inevitable. John touched on this in his presentation. What we can predict is a sequence: when these deals will happen, who will be the surviving company, who will run it. The valuation disparity between the larger-cap names in the royalty sector and the smaller-cap names, and I would say the smaller-cap names or anything under $3-$4 billion market cap, is wide. It's a wide chasm between the 2-3x price-to-NAV that the category killers Franco-Nevada, Wheaton, and Royal Gold are enjoying, and everybody else that, on average, is at 1x NAV or below. In our case, by consensus estimates, close to 0.5-0.6x NAV. I think there is a value proposition in creating scale. In addition to that, by consolidating, there's massive amounts of G&A that can be run out of the system.
With the people you see on this call today, and this is basically the whole company, we could run a portfolio of 2,000 royalties. We've realized 100% synergies on the companies we have absorbed. There's about $50-$70 million of excess G&A among the smaller-cap universe that can be run out. There's significant value created in that, in addition to creating scale and the re-rate potential that comes from that. We think M&A is inevitable. We've been on the sidelines really since 2021 because we haven't had the currency to participate. We've had to be disciplined and focus on the other planks of growth to grow our business accretively while our currency starts to reflect the intrinsic value of the underlying business.
Thank you. The last question of the day, because we are approaching our 2-hour mark now.
What is the return on your last investment of the copper stream of $50 million?
Yeah. Joanne , thanks. I'll take this one. So consensus estimates on their most recent acquisition were a circa 10% return. And simply, that's based on consensus commodity prices and Adriatic-stated guidance for the mine, their production profile, which I'd emphasize is on reserves alone. And using Vares as an example of the returns within the royalty sector, that call it 10% rate of return doesn't incorporate commodity price upside. Consensus copper right now is about $4 a pound. Recently, we saw it north of $5 a pound. So that's a potential 25% uplift if we saw copper exceed that level again. Similarly, it doesn't incorporate the expansion potential we mentioned, 800,000-1,000,000 tons per year. That's a compounding 25% impact on the potential gold price or the copper price, I should mention.
And then finally, as I mentioned with the underlying resource, if you incorporated the additional mineral resources that are not currently in mineral reserves, that would be an additional compounding effect of 50% additional reserves within the mine plan if you extend those additional resources. So all these different factors are the upside you have within a royalty or a stream that come at no cost relative to an operator. So the base case more than covers our cost of borrow, and then we see significant upside beyond that, given all those factors associated with this investment.
Thank you very much. As I mentioned, we're at the top of our two-hour investor day presentation. We'll end the Q&A session now. If you do have any other questions, please forward them directly to Peter at pbehncke@goldroyalty.com.
Before we continue, David, would you like to say a few words before we sign off?
Well, thank you, everybody, for your attention. Hopefully, you got a lot out of the presentation today. Certainly, getting to meet some of the key management, they normally don't get to meet on a day-to-day basis or, for that matter, quarterly town hall. Hopefully, it was beneficial to all of you. Please do follow up if you have any other questions about our business.
Thank you. Just a reminder that this investor day town hall will be available on the Gold Royalty's website and across all our socials within the next 24 hours. Before we sign off, please ensure that you fill in the very short questionnaire at the end of this presentation. This really helps us and the company communicate more effectively with you in the future.
Thank you for joining us, and we'll see you on the next town hall forum.