Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. These are sort of elevator pitches, aren't they, these? Okay.
Quick and dirty.
Safe harbor statement, you've all seen those. McEwen Mining, I have personally $225 million invested in McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper, our subsidiary. I own 16%, have been taking $1 a year for too long. Our share price went through a horrible period. I call that the road to hell. From 2019 to 2022, we lost hundreds of millions of dollars and many shareholders, and that was because our operations did not deliver on guidance, and that's the price you pay. I'm glad to say we're on the road to redemption, and we have precious metal assets, gold mines in Canada, Nevada, a dormant one in Mexico, and a joint venture, a gold-silver mine in southern Argentina, a large copper project in Argentina, and a greenfields copper project in Nevada.
This is our share price since we closed on a financing on our copper project, Los Azules copper project. We're up 183% since two years ago. We're up three times the GDX, four times gold or Nasdaq's, and ten times copper. I think there's a lot more room. When you look at it, this is an internal calculation, but we feel. The company is made up of three parts: large interest in a copper project, a portfolio of six royalties on exploration properties, the largest being on our copper project, Los Azules. And we have valued that at $35 million, but once Los Azules is in operation, that would generate $450 million over the 27-year life.
And then we compared ourselves to a peer group of four companies, came up with their enterprise value by gold equivalent ounce, and that'd be the midpoint. Then we took discounts of 50% and a premium going either way for the high-low. I'll talk about the copper project 'cause that's really driving value right now. It's on the spine of the Andes, and you've got 40% of the world's annual copper production coming from Peru and Chile, and I think Argentina will soon, in the next ten years, will rival Peru in terms of copper production if all of those mines or deposits go into production. At the top end of the province we're in, San Juan Province, are two properties that have been in the news recently, Filo del Sol and Josemaria.
BHP came in, cut a deal with Lundin Mining worth $4.4 billion. And I wanna talk about those two, but first, Los Azules is 37.6 billion pounds copper. It's the eighth-largest undeveloped copper deposit in the world, and we're looking at, over the life of it, producing annually 180,000 tons at a cost of $1.02 a pound, all in $1.58, with an NPV of $2.9 billion at $3.75 copper. This is just... If you're a gold bug, you like to look at copper projects and call them a gold equivalent. This is the same.
It's equivalent to a 60+ million-ounce gold deposit producing gold at just over $600 an ounce equivalent, all-in $1,000, for 27 years, and a $2.5 billion CapEx and a payback in under three years. So interesting. For the copper project, we've... It's a subsidiary of McEwen Mining. It started out at 100%. It's now down to 48%. We're in the process of doing the fourth financing, but we've raised, so far, $416 million privately for the copper project, advancing it. Our two largest shareholder, McEwen Mining, followed by Stellantis, the fourth-largest car manufacturer in the world, followed by Rio Tinto, their Nuton technology arm at 14%. I led the financings, the first financing, by putting $40 million in.
I have 13% of this company as well, and some individuals. So Argentina was a pariah. It is now a place you want to invest or think about investing. President Milei came in, and he's doing magic down there. He got legislation passed. He was an outsider. No one gave him any chance of getting elected. Then they didn't give him any chance of getting his legislation changed, passed, and he's been able to do that. And right on the heels of getting all of that passed, BHP came in with Lundin and did that $4.4 billion deal. Subsequent to that, the State Department, U.S. State Department and Argentine government signed a memo of... memorandum of understanding to develop critical minerals. This is all about sourcing minerals in secure places in the world, trade partners for America. So I mentioned Josemaria and Filo del Sol.
They're in the same province as Los Azules, our project. We're at a lower altitude. We're at 3,100 to 3,600 meters above sea level. Base camp, or the top of Filo is Base Camp Everest. So there you need oxygen. Your machines don't work as well. So we're at a lower altitude. Based on the published resources, we are a larger resource than the two of them combined. We're a higher copper grade than them. We're closer to infrastructure than them, roads and highways. We're at an earlier stage. We're at a PEA. We'll have a bankable feasibility study out in the first half of next year. And according to Goldman Sachs, we're in the lowest cost quartile, and their Josemaria is in the highest cost quartile.
So low cost, low altitude, bigger deposit, and right now we're at an implied value of just under $1 billion on Josemaria, Los Azules, as opposed to that group at $4 billion. So I think we're undervalued. That's the RIGI, the benchmarking. I want to show you what we're proposing for the mine camp of Los Azules. I brought in an architect two years ago to help us redefine mining. Mining has a bad reputation, and we want to change it and help change it. And this is one of the models for a mine of the future.
It goes without saying that we need to transform industry to provide us with the materials we need for a renewable society, but without the historic legacy of environmental damage. Copper is one resource that will only grow in importance as we replace fossil fuels with a decarbonized world. Electric cars, wind turbines, batteries, solar panels, and the computers that power everything all require copper, and that copper needs to be green copper, carbon neutral, and ecologically responsible. When we started the project, we began by drafting a set of principles for the project that would guide the team in its decision-making and approach. We did this work informed by the place itself.
The Andes are an incredibly beautiful and sensitive ecosystem, so we knew it was our duty to be stewards of this place, protecting habitat, glaciers, water, and life itself, while at the same time getting the copper resources that we need, so we've been thinking carefully about the future first and our eventual legacy. We then focused on the people, the miners, and the community itself, and we've been working to create a new kind of experience for people that live in San Juan and the surroundings. Over the life of mine, over 1,000 high-quality local jobs will be created, and these will be jobs unlike any others in the industry. We think people will covet working for McEwen Copper because not only do we focus on safety, but also on dignity and livability, creating a mining facility that is an oasis in the sky.
Here is our vision for the mine camp of the future. Beautiful, inspiring, and bold, a biosphere of health and life. After a long day of work, our people will return to a place completely powered by the sun and creating ideal conditions for rest, sleep, recuperation, and the daily needs of miners. Imagine a place that grows its own food, collects and treats its own water, and generates energy without emissions on a giant solar super roof. We are placing specific emphasis on indoor air quality, acoustics, and stress reduction, with a focus on social justice, equity, and even beauty within a mine setting. This will be a place to live and thrive while earning a living. We're designing an ecological water treatment valley that not only completely protects downstream water quality, but allows for the creation of new habitat and the enhancement of vegas.
Partnerships with local universities and scientists will see new advances in natural phytoremediation, water treatment, and ecological testing to ensure that water is always pure and healthy. Our entire mine operation will be powered by on-site and off-site solar farms, generating all electricity without carbon emissions. Wherever possible, conveyors and fleet facilities will be electrified and plugged into this network of clean energy with batteries instead of diesel for backup generation. At Los Azules, we are not building a mill. Instead, we are advancing heap leaching techniques to extract metals chemically and in a completely closed-loop process, with radical reductions in energy and water requirements as a result, and finally, a state-of-the-art, renewably powered electrowinning facility will produce pure copper, so that from the pit to the product, our investors and customers know that sustainability informed every single step, and they can count on that for their own ESG goal-setting.
Our planning process continues, and we look forward to sharing more innovations as we develop this amazing project further. At McEwen Copper, we are striving to deliver the world's greenest supply of copper in the world's first regenerative copper mine.
Low carbon, low water consumption, 100% renewable energy-powered, an experienced management team with deep experience in Argentina, in mining. You can see the companies they're with. With me today is Michael Meding. If you'd put up your hand, he's Vice President, General Manager of Los Azules and McEwen Copper, and Stefan Spears, VP Development, at the back of the room, if you have any questions. The deposit is growing. We're extending it, 400 meters to the north, 700 meters to the south, and 3 kilometers away, we've found another porphyry that could be. We just early-stage exploration on that. McEwen Mining, we're building our cash, $40 million in cash. We're reducing our debt from $65 million, it's down to $40 million. We had a big change in earnings.
We went from a $1.81 loss to a $55 million net income. That was driven by some accounting, which we could talk about. 3 million ounces in resources, in gold, 10 million in silver. The assets are starting to turn around, and by 2028, we expect the gold to be up to 200,000 ounces. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Any questions in the room? I hope so.
Yes.
Sorry, just the microphone. Yeah, where's the microphone? Oh, there we are. So just as it was a nice video, I was just wondering, in terms of, you know, putting it in the context of conventional mining, you, you'll still have a pit, you'll still have-
We'll still have a pit, yes.
You'll still have a way... So I mean, any thoughts as to how you wanna be, you know, leading citizen on that front? Is there anything different there, or it's still conventional mining, as we know it?
We decided to go with the heap leach process.
... rather than a conventional processing system that produces a concentrate. Because when we looked at what we'd have to do for tailings dam, it would be 300 meters tall, it'd be in a glacial valley, at the head of a tributary of the main water source going through the capital city, and in an area that's seismically active. That was a non-starter. Mike has set up a training center in the local community, where we've been training drillers. We've bought six or eight drills of our own, 'cause there weren't enough there. We had 23 drills working at the site, and there's a lot of training, a lot of orientation going on. The mine itself, we expect most of the equipment there to be electrically powered. We have a deal with YPF to provide 100% renewable wind, solar, hydro.
When you look at it, there is an acute labor shortage appearing in the industry, and it's about how do you attract the best talent? You're gonna have to make a very comfortable place when it's remote, and you're gonna have to be looking at how you take care of your workforce, and we're working towards that end, as you saw here, and we're also planning a hotel there, 'cause you wanna be as transparent as possible about mining, and invite the public in. It's a gorgeous area, but there'll be a hotel. There's some eco-tourism we can do around there, and it's just a very exciting project, at least for me and ourselves, so.
Any other questions?
What was the accounting error?
It wasn't an error. We owned, in 2022, over 50%, so you consolidate all the expenses of our subsidiary, McEwen Mining. So all of those expenses flowed through our income statement. On our last financing, we dropped below 50%, so it was a deconsolidation, and that swung it around from a big loss to a reasonably attractive gain. So... It's one of these crazy things.