Visit our website. Let me start with the big picture. Why invest in Hycroft? Why does it deserve your attention? First of all is scale. It's one of the largest precious metals, gold and silver deposits in the world. Second is financial stability and strength. We sit today with $221 million of cash and no debt on our balance sheet. Exploration upside, we've delineated and found two high-grade silver deposits that sit underneath our existing pit, and the property remains underexplored with more potential for future discoveries. We're advancing to a near-term decision for production in the world. We have significant leverage to rising gold and silver prices, and our institutional shareholder base is evolved and continues to be incredibly strong. Finally, we've expanded our management team and our board to deliver this project. Let me take you through each of these.
Nevada is not just where we happen to operate. For us, it's a real competitive advantage. As you just heard Greg describe, where these mines are really matters. Nevada is ranked number one in the world in the Fraser Institute, and it has the largest mining program in the lower 48. There's more than 40 operating gold mines, 100 active mining operations, and 200 active exploration permits across the state. For us, that translates into a deep and experienced labor market, substantial existing infrastructure, and a regulatory environment that knows how to permit projects. Looking at the numbers, we have over 1.8 billion ounces of silver equivalent resource, or in gold terms, 24 million ounces just in our measured and indicated, with additional ounces in the inferred category. I'll say that again, 1.8 billion ounces of silver equivalent, or 24 million gold equivalent ounces.
As I mentioned, we're doing this with a substantial balance sheet behind us to advance the project. Within our resource, we have a high-grade silver domains defined with 90.2 million ounces of silver just in M&I. We believe, in addition, that our stock continues to trade at a significant discount to our net asset value. I'll speak more in a moment, but at a high level, our market cap of roughly $2 billion today compares to a net asset value of our recently published PEA at spot prices of nearly $10 billion. It's difficult to grasp the scale of the asset, so let me put it into perspective. The graphic on the left depicts our land package, which totals more than 64,000 acres. For perspective, we put the island of Manhattan next to that.
We've explored approximately 15% of the land package, and you can see the resource pit that sits on the graph. The size of the deposit would place us within the top 1% of gold and silver properties globally. The chart on the right shows only the top 500. Our two high-grade systems at Brimstone and Vortex are continuing to expand. We'll talk more about that in a moment. This is a brownfield site, and that's critical. We have existing infrastructure on site, we have permits in place, and we have a team that is on-site and ready to advance to production. Our ownership base continues to evolve. We are increasingly being recognized by some of the world's largest precious metals investors, including Eric Sprott, our largest shareholder. We are 84% institutionally owned, which has evolved substantially over the past couple of years.
Earlier this year, we were added to the Russell 3000 Index, and we also trade actively in the GDXJ, the MSCI World Small Cap Index, and the Solactive Global Gold Miners Index. That index inclusion is important and provides regular and consistent trading liquidity. We trade approximately $2 million or 2 million shares a day, which totals almost $50 million of value. As we advance towards production, we have a number of ways to do that. As I mentioned before, there is significant brownfield infrastructure on site, including existing leach pads from previously mined oxide and transition material. Restarting our heap leach processing is a near-term priority, and we are currently assessing the timeline to do that. Beyond the oxide material, we are focused on unlocking the larger sulfide resource through conventional processing methodologies. We are evaluating two primary pathways to do that, and those options are not mutually exclusive.
Option one is for the development of a high-grade underground mine, advancing our Brimstone and Vortex discoveries through underground development. Option two is open pit and processing of the broader sulfide resource with the potential to use roasting as opposed to a POX autoclave technology. Using roasting would provide a third revenue stream with the production of sulfuric acid. We are also evaluating a hybrid approach using an underground and open pit mine simultaneously, allowing us to accelerate the high grades from the underground and the volumes from the open pit. In parallel, our exploration program continues to underpin it all, growing the resource and informing the ongoing studies. As I said, restarting our heap leach is a near-term priority. We have got existing pad capacity, are permitted to do that, and have a workforce on site and ready to do that.
If we are able to restart our heap leach, we would be able to generate cash flow relatively quickly. We have completed RC drilling late last year and early this year to further define the amount of oxide material remaining. Met tests are underway right now to confirm recoveries. To be clear, leaching will always be a part of our production story. The work we are undertaking right now is determining the optimal timing and whether we want to do that ahead of the process or the development of the larger sulfide resource. Turning to the broader sulfide project. Looking at the underground, our drill program has been focused on maximizing the systems at Brimstone and Vortex, continuing to expand them and test their extent. We continue to see intercepts up to multiple thousand grams of silver with gold over true widths of 20 m- 40 m.
To put a finer point on the resource itself, we have a measured and indicated resource of 90 million ounces of silver, 300,000 ounces of gold, with an additional 13.3 million ounces of silver in inferred and 51,000 ounces of gold. It is important to note that this resource is developed based on an open- pit block model. As we continue to advance, we would expect to see the grades increase as we model this from an underground. Additionally, this does not yet include the nearly 26,000 meters of drilling from our 2025/2026 drill campaign that is ongoing now. In other words, our view is the resource you are seeing here today is a floor and not a ceiling. We have engaged RESPEC to evaluate mining alternatives to develop a conceptual mine plan.
The two exploration declines that we would need would be used for further exploration, allowing us to drill underground more cheaply and more quickly, and could also be used for production. Looking at it in more detail, our conceptual design utilizes two declines coming off of Brimstone and Vortex simultaneously. Brimstone is near surface, slightly higher grade than Vortex, whereas Vortex is a bit deeper and would provide the bulk of the tons at a slightly lower grade than Vortex. The design that we're considering is about getting into production as efficiently as possible. Turning to option two, our recently published PEA for the broader sulfide resource shows the production of the full 24 million ounce gold equivalent through conventional open- pit methods with a POX plan assumed. As I said, the PEA assumes POX as the conventional processing technology, which is in use throughout Nevada today.
We're also evaluating the alternative to use roasting in place of POX. It's attractive because it would generate a third revenue stream in the generation of sulfuric acid, which is in demand from the lithium, copper, and fertilizer industries. We've recently completed metallurgical test program on the roasting alternative and are evaluating the economics that go with that. As I mentioned before, we're also evaluating a parallel path development approach utilizing an underground simultaneously with the underground or with the open- pit, excuse me. Looking at the value of the PEA. At base case prices of $3,600 gold and $48 silver, our PEA shows an after-tax net present value of $4.3 billion. At spot prices, that moves to roughly $10 billion with an IRR of nearly 30%. The payback is four point seven years at the base case and under three years at spot pricing.
The 51-year mine life averages 295,000 gold- equivalent ounces with an additional 6.8 million ounces of gold in the inferred category, which were not included in the mine plan. Additionally, this plan does not include any of the drill results from the 2025/2026 system. We believe this combination of the scale leverage and fast payback is very rare in the sector, particularly in Nevada. Our drill program is also doing double duty, continuing to test the full extent of Brimstone and Vortex while also evaluating district- scale targets. Two weeks ago, we reported some of the strongest results yet from the program, with 30.5 m at 780 g of silver at Vortex and 5.5 m at Brimstone, running over 1,300 m of silver. We're not just confirming the extent of these high-grade systems, we're also adding higher grade.
Both systems remain open in all directions and at depth, and as I mentioned earlier, we're still under 15% explored across the district. The technical team has done extensive work beyond the drill bit, mapping soil geochemistry, doing IP surveys, and looking at high-res drone photos. All of this points to additional targets beyond Brimstone and Vortex that we will be testing in the coming months. We currently have two core rigs on site and an RC rig, and we'll be adding two additional core rigs in the coming months to accelerate this drilling. None of this happens without the right team in place. Diane Garrett, Executive Chairman and CEO, successfully led the discovery of the Haile deposit and the development of Haile before being acquired by OceanaGold. Additionally, we've recently added Michael Deal as our COO.
Michael is one of the few people that have operated all of the roasters and autoclaves across Nevada. Michael recently joins us from First Majestic, where he was the VP of Ops and has extensive experience operating underground mines across Mexico. Earlier this month, we also strengthened our board with the addition of four seasoned mining executives, including Richard O'Brien, who is the former CEO of Newmont, Chair of Pretium, and Chair of New Gold. Richard joins us as our new lead independent director. Additionally, we have added Marcelo Godoy, who is the Chief Technology Officer at AngloGold, Josh Olmsted, who was previously the President and COO of Freeport Americas, and Blake Rhodes, who was the General Counsel and Senior Corporate Development Lead at Newmont.
The addition of these individuals to our board strengthens the team that we already have in place and sets us up for the next chapter of growth at Hycroft. To close, Hycroft is a district scale asset in a tier 1 jurisdiction with a strengthened balance sheet, an expanded team and board, and we are generating some of the best drill results that we have produced. This is all converging at the right time, and we look forward to the next chapter of this story. Look forward to continuing to chat and answer any questions that you may have.
Do we have any questions for Eric and the team? Hey, Eric. Within each of the development plans' optionality, does any one of them, more so than the other, prioritize gold versus silver? Then a similar question for exploration. Do some of these targets prioritize one or the other, or at least in the same proportion as you find in Brimstone and Vortex, sort of this gold-silver ratio and sort of a proportionality?
Yeah. Brimstone and Vortex themselves are silver dominant. It depends on the metal price that you use, but the revenue split is 75% silver, 25% gold. If you look at the broader sulfide resource, that flips and is 70% gold, 30% silver. So we are not targeting a particular metal necessarily. However, we continue to see that Brimstone and Vortex are bringing those higher silver grades and would expect that to continue into the future.
What about in the development optionality? Does one prefer one or the other?
Yeah, look, the approach on the underground would be targeting Brimstone and Vortex, and so that would be a silver-focused development initially. As I said, the broader sulfide resource remains. The underground would not sterilize the broader open pitable sulfide resource, which would bring gold and the silver, but the broader open pit would be focused on gold.
[inaudible]. Last call for questions.
Could you just briefly talk about the history of the company? How did you come across these properties? Why all of a sudden does this become big news?
Yeah. Hycroft has been around for many years. It was initially mined, the heap leach was mined since the late 1980s and 1990s. The leaching stopped in 2022. But it's only been more recently with the discovery or the delineation of these high-grade silver systems at Brimstone and Vortex through a reinterpretation of the geology, has the approach moved beyond a development of a larger sulfide resource and the optionality that comes with the higher grade silver at depth.
Please join me in thanking Eric and the team for his wonderful presentation, and I'd encourage you to join him in sidebar chat for some added commentary. Thanks very much.