Chalice Mining Limited (C8U.F) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

December 8, 2025

Frankfurt DE Materials Metals and Mining Special Calls 40 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Alexander Dorsch

Executives
#1

Good morning, everyone. Obviously, a major milestone today for Chalice Mining with the release of our pre-feasibility study for our world-class Gonneville project in WA. This is a major step forward for the company and for the asset. And I guess what we've released today confirms what we've known for a while here, which is that we have a standout development project and a standout opportunity in the critical minerals space and very much a very unique asset in Western Australia. It's a big reset in terms of the development plan as well for this asset. So the study today outlines the largest and lowest cost undeveloped project of the palladium, nickel, copper variety in the Western world. It's going to generate $4.7 billion in pretax free cash flows over 23 years of open-pit life. And that's an initial 23 years of open-pit life, which I'll talk to later around the upside, and it's going to pay back very rapidly with about 2.7 years. It's a very, very high-quality study and a high-quality asset. It has huge exploration upside, not only within the existing resource, but also in the surrounding tenure. We hold 7,000 square kilometers of underexplored West Yilgarn tenure. And really, what makes the project unique is the leverage it has to palladium. There is just so few development projects globally in palladium, and we're looking at about a $250 million increase in the NPV per $100 per ounce increase in the long-term palladium price. So that's a fantastic leverage to the upside and what we think is a rapidly increasing price environment. And importantly, Chalice is financially very, very strong, $76 million in cash and listed investments. We are funded all the way through to FID here on this asset. We do not have any near-term funding requirements. And obviously, we've got a strategic MOU with Mitsubishi Corporation, and we have a lot of strategic interest in the asset. So we are looking to engage with those strategics now, obviously, very actively following the release of this PFS. And again, it makes us very comfortable that our balance sheet is well and truly sufficient to get us through to FID. The team led by myself, highly regarded, obviously, very committed and invested. We have the right people leading this project through to development. And the opportunity for investors is very, very clear. It's trading at about USD 20 per resource ounce. And now we've got a maiden reserve. The project is trading -- the company is trading at about USD 50 per reserve ounce, and that's excluding any value from nickel, copper or cobalt. So that is quite a stunning investment proposition. So the project is obviously very large scale, long life, globally competitive production profile, 220,000 ounces of precious metals per year, predominantly palladium, 7,000 tonnes a year of nickel, 8,000 tonnes a year of copper, 700 tonnes a year of cobalt for a pretty spectacular 23-year initial open-pit life. And only half of the resource is actually exploited in that 23 years, which I'll talk to later. It's going to sit very close to the bottom of the cost curve, firmly second quartile with USD 370 an ounce all-in sustaining costs, which means it's not only the lowest cost project in the Western world, but it's actually the lowest cost of any undeveloped PGM project globally. It has $1.4 billion pretax NPV at an 8% discount rate. 23% IRR and a 2.7-year payback at what we think is very conservative base case prices of $1,300 palladium, $18,750 nickel, 10,500 copper. I'll talk to as well in a minute what those numbers look like at spot prices. But it is a fundable and executable project now. It's a very large, low strip ratio, simple flow sheet project, and we've invested heavily and derisked it significantly already with a $240 million investment by Chalice to date since the discovery in 2020. The reserve, about half of the resource is converted into reserves, as it says there, -- we've done a significant amount of derisking. I guess, the key part being we own the private farmland where the project is going to be constructed. And we've got strategic and major project status from state and Commonwealth Government. So we have every bit of government support that is possible at this point of a project. So we're very, very confident in the development path and the approvals pathway ahead. We're going to really do something that's quite novel in Australia. We're going to build Australia's first platinum group metals mine and Australia's first palladium mine. And this is just a real standout opportunity. Like I said, there are just very, very few assets like this around in critical minerals and certainly in palladium, and we expect to attract significant amount of debt funding to help us execute on those plans. Like I said, funded to target FID in the first half of 2028. We're really moving up a gear now into the FS. It will be about an 18-month feasibility study. We will secure regulatory approvals, and we'll move to securing offtake and debt financing solution over the course of the coming years as well, all within our current balance sheet. The open pit phase is set to generate a pretty significant production profile, which I've mentioned. The exceptional returns, I think, really speak for themselves. So these metrics here are listed at base case prices there as well as at today's spot prices and concentrate offtake terms. The first point being we've made a significant reduction in the overall preproduction capital estimate. We require now $820 million to construct Stage 1 of the project. I mentioned the firmly second quartile all-in sustaining costs. And really, what that investment delivers is pretty exceptional free cash flow on a pre- and post-tax basis. You can see the $300 million to $360 million per year, depending on whether you believe our base case prices or spot prices today and somewhere between AUD 4.7 billion and AUD 6.2 billion of total free cash flow after CapEx, exceptional cash flow generation. Pretax NPV also increases from that $1.4 billion to $2 billion at spot prices. Post-tax NPV, $1 billion to $1.5 billion at spot prices. Payback period as well gets slightly shorter at spot, and certainly, a very solid IRR of 23% to 29% for the investment of this size, we think that is exceptional. And a reminder that all of these metrics are really only exploiting half of the resource. So there is a remaining almost 8 million ounces of precious metals, almost 0.5 million tonnes of contained nickel, 250,000 tonnes of contained copper below the model pit show here. So there is exceptional upside through life extension, either in a larger open pit or a progression into underground. Where we will sit competitively, we've done a lot of work on this. Obviously, the industry ranks itself by all-in sustaining cost per ounce of precious metals net of byproduct credits. You can see Russia occupies the left-hand side, South Africa and Zimbabwe really occupy the right-hand side. We're going to sit somewhere in the middle. As you can see, firmly second quartile, we are about half of the cost profile of the next best Western producer, and that is Impala Canada at about USD 720 an ounce. They are actually shutting down that operation, so that is artificially low. So we are in a fantastic position to generate exceptional returns in a very, very safe part of the cost curve. As you can see there, the USD 1,300 an ounce palladium price assumption we've used corresponds to about the 90th, 95th percentile of the cost curve. At the moment, that Sibanye US PGM operation is operating at about USD 1,320 an ounce all-in sustaining costs, which gives us comfort that the market should balance higher than our base case assumption of USD 1,300 an ounce. Also, the cost profile in South Africa and the level of production curtailments we've seen implies that we have a shrinking and steepening cost curve for the PGM industry as well. So why palladium? I guess, in short, this is the price history over the last 7 years or so. The prices are now rebounding, as you can see, from a cyclical low. That cyclical low, we've taken as our mine design or cutoff for the purposes of the PFS, all our mine designing and economic cutoffs have been derived at that price floor there in the green line. What we saw, as you can see the orange line is our long-term USD 1,300 ounce assumption. And you can see there that, that price was exceeded for in the order of 3.5 years in the last cycle. And currently, we're trading at closer to USD 1,500 an ounce. So clearly, the market is telling us that the market is short again and hence, prices are rising. And you can just look back to the 2019, 2020 period to see how rapidly the market can move into deficit and prices can really accelerate very rapidly. And that is the nature of this being a very, very small market. And importantly, there is just no elasticity in the palladium supply. So even if we do see high prices like what we saw between 2020 and '23 there, there was no additional supply added to the market. So global production declined over that period even with high prices, which just emphasizes just how unique and what a good position our asset is in to basically be the only supply option near term to come into this market. So the financial metrics, first of all, I mentioned the NPV and IRR. Obviously, these look fantastic at base case, look even better at spot prices. The cash flows out of Stage 1, you see there 3 years generating sort of $300 million to $360 million per annum. That generates a 2.4 to 2.7-year payback. We then go and reinvest into an expansion of the project. We believe that expansion is well and truly incentivized at the long run $1,300 base case price environment. And as you can see there, the payback period there, 2 to 2.5 years on Stage 2 is certainly telling that point as well that it is well and truly incentivized. We generate between $310 million and $390 million for the following 10 years at the expanded throughput rate and between $4.7 billion and $6.2 billion over the 23-year mine life. So the low cost really, what drives our position on the cost curve is really the open-pit mining. We're starting mining at surface, and we've got exceptional high byproduct credits, which most of the PGM industry doesn't have. So this drives that exceptional profitability through the cycle. As you can see here on this page, our all-in sustaining margin is very, very healthy through the 23 years. You can see the spot basket is trading at close to USD 1,600 an ounce, including all of our other metals, palladium, platinum and gold. So that really cements our position and makes us very much profitable, as it says there through the cycle. The preproduction CapEx, like I said, has come down significantly from where we were 2 years ago. That number was $1.6 billion 2 years ago. Now it is $820 million for a slightly reduced scale. So that significantly enhances the project, obviously, makes the funding hurdle considerably easier. And as it says, the industry-leading all-in sustaining costs, really, this is where a lot of the fantastic work in optimizations have really resulted in a fantastic cost profile to the asset and given the exceptional mine life. Even at bottom of the cycle prices, we believe the metrics are solid. And you can see that even if you take USD 200 an ounce off the long-term palladium price, we still have a plus 18% IRR, 23% IRR at base case prices and really that leverage to the palladium price, as I mentioned earlier, is the key factor here, $250 million in additional NPV8 at -- for every USD 100 per ounce increase in the long-term palladium price. We're sensitive, obviously, to those prices and to operating costs as per usual. We're sensitive -- less sensitive to the cost of capital, the exchange rate and capital costs. But really, I guess, we think this is an absolutely exceptional set of numbers and proves this asset can survive and be incentivized at the bottom of the price cycle. The exposure, obviously, it's very, very diverse, dominated by palladium at 51% of revenues, nickel #2 at 22%; copper, #3 at 17%. That is a very, very handy byproduct out of nickel and copper. And that split provides us an inherent diversification and robustness to fluctuations in prices. And as you can see on the right-hand side, the annual production, when you think about it in terms of what's contained in resource, we have exceptional longevity to this asset, which really puts it in a class of its own. The funding piece as well, obviously, very important that those exceptional margins that I outlined, really that underscores the ability to service significant low-cost debt. And we know there is effectively no shortage and almost unlimited sort of possibilities at the moment for critical minerals projects like Gonneville, obviously, palladium, platinum, nickel, copper, cobalt, all either critical or strategic minerals to Western governments. So we expect really very, very strong interest, and we have had obviously very strong interest from all these debt providers. And now that we have a PFS, we will be moving into formal -- commencement of formal discussions with these debt providers. To talk about the project itself, obviously, it's located on farmland that we own. So the mine infrastructure is going to be wholly located within 2,200 hectares. That's the mine development area. We've also got opportunities here to demonstrate that this area can be improved through restoration and also offsets. We've actually already got 400 hectares of designated biodiversity offset. We've got research partnerships in place. So we've very much looked ahead here to how to make this sustainable, and we certainly believe this is a very viable place to build and operate a major mine. And we will -- as it says there, we have committed and we will comply with no net loss of species or habitat as that process. So we think that significantly -- all those factors significantly derisk the major environmental approvals. Looking at the open pit, the -- as people would who have followed the discovery know, there's some very high grade near surface, effectively, the mining starts at surface. We have a significant high-grade core and that high-grade core has very good mining continuity. So this is a fairly simple open-pit mining. As you can see from those sections, very, very nice plus $80 a tonne NSR material that will be the focus of the early years, progressively moving into a life of mine average of around about AUD 55 a tonne net smelter return. So these zones have good strike and dip continuity, and this is a very mineable open-pit deposit. The design is in 8 stages, very low strip ratio, 1.2 over the life of mine, starting even lower than that, around about 1.0 over the first 3 years. And again, the benefit is, as you can see in that bottom left-hand chart, very high-grade material coming in early in the mine plan before it moves into a very healthy margin, plus 45% EBITDA margin, long-life expanded operation and the pit progressing to a depth of 450 meters, processing a total in the production target of 280 million tonnes. The production profile, like I mentioned, about 200,000 ounces a year of palladium for 23 years. You can see the base metals contribution there as well. Obviously, very, very diverse, like I said, and very significant quantities of metals going out in concentrate over the long term. The process flow sheet obviously has been the subject of a lot of work in the PFS. This is where most of our heavy lifting has been done. We've spent about $15 million on metallurgical test work, process design. We have done this work exceptionally well and exceptionally detailed, and it is now proven over all of our composites that these outcomes will be achieved. And so we have a 2-part process flow sheet, oxide material just being leached for its palladium and gold content, sulfide material going through sequential flotation, producing a salable copper concentrate with a lot of the PGMs in it and then producing a nickel concentrate with the cobalt and some more PGMs within it before finally getting blended together with the oxide material and about 25% of the revenue coming from a standard precious metals leach circuit at the back end of the plant. We've got very, very attractive concentrates, negligible impurities, no penalties associated. We've already had indicative terms from a number of nickel and copper smelters we've been talking to over the last few years. So we have very, very strong interest in this -- in offtake of these products. And it will go without saying, but it's exceptionally strong interest in the copper concentrate market at the moment, which is driving negative TCRCs. And obviously, there's potential for improvements and further optimizations of this work in the FS, but also movements in these recoveries if we see sustained long-term price movements. The infrastructure work as well has been the other key focus area for the PFS. We've derisked the power solution and the water solution now. Power will be a combination of grid and on-site hybrid solar, battery and peaking on site. Like I said, process water will come via a new pipeline from existing treated wastewater. Logistics is about as simple as it gets being so close to Perth. Workforce, predominantly residential, a very, very attractive point helps us secure low costs over the life of this operation, no fly in, fly out. It means we have significant attractiveness to a very, very established workforce in the Perth Metro area. And then obviously, all the usual nonprocess infrastructure, which has obviously been designed to a PFS standard. The upside really is pretty clear when you look at this page. This shows the PFS pit shell. That is the 280 million tonnes of ore that is mined in the first 23 years of open-pit mining. You can see just how small that is in the context of where we know mineralization extends over this deposit. So just in resources below the pit shell, there's almost 8 million ounces of precious metals. We think there's significant upside, as you can see that beyond even those inferred resources there in blue. We've intersected mineralization all the way down to 1.1 kilometers. So we do think this progressively moves into a large-format bulk underground operation over the long term as well. So exceptional upside for a true multigenerational type production profile. And really, we do think upside here is likely as it says. So the road ahead, like I said, fully financed to get this project to FID in first half '28. The next major milestone for the team is the environmental submissions in the second half of next year. Obviously, the PFS work is going to inform those environmental submissions and all the dust noise impacts modeling going on at the moment, such that we're in a position to reach FID in the first half of 2028 and first production in 2030. So that would be a fantastic outcome given the discovery only in early 2020. We think sort of 10 years between discovery to first production is an exceptional result and certainly beats the sort of global average that other base metals, PGM projects are looking at somewhere between 14 and 18 years at the moment. So we're certainly on the pathway now. We've got a very, very firm and robust development plan. So we are taking this asset ahead. So to recap before we finish with some questions, we've got the leading palladium project in the Western world. There is really no other attractive palladium project anywhere. It's one of the standout projects in Australia, one of the standout critical minerals projects globally. It's funded through to an FID, and it's, like I said, on a development pathway. The PFS outlines that we're going to generate exceptional returns, almost $5 billion in free cash flow pretax. And importantly, it pays back rapidly. So that is really the crux of the robustness here for an investment of the size of $820 million to get that paid back in less than 3 years and is an exceptional outcome. The approvals, like I said, on track for second half next year. The real derisk element there is that we've spent $50 million acquiring that freehold land. So we have substantially sort of taken out the risks there. And the exploration upside, like I said, not only the resource, but broader in the West Yilgarn is something that certainly keeps us focused in Chalice as well. So I will pause there for some questions.

Operator

Operator
#2

[Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from Hayden Bairstow with Argonaut.

Hayden Bairstow

Analysts
#3

Plenty of detail on the study. Just a couple of things from me. First, just on mining. The mining costs seem quite elevated over the life of the project. Just some thoughts about why you're ramping it from 5 up towards 7 over time and the strip ratio is reasonably flat. And then just secondly, just on that, I mean, there's obviously a 1:1 or just over your plans for grade control drilling because I presume managing ore dilution is going to be pretty critical to this thing once it gets going.

Alexander Dorsch

Executives
#4

Yes, absolutely. Look, mining costs reflect reality at the moment in the market. We've had 3 competitive bids from mining contractors. We are on the outskirts of Perth, so it's residential. So that helps offset some of those costs, but we have put realistic mining costs in. We are operating with a 5x5x5 SMU. So there's a level of selectivity certainly initially to achieve the grade profile to the plant. Grade control, I would say we've already done a 10x10 sort of pseudo grade control program to give us measured resources in the starter pit area in the Phase 1 pit. So that gives us confidence that our 40x40 indicated drilling is very robust in terms of the estimate accuracy. But certainly, there will be some additional grade control in the plan, and that's been costed in the bottom-up mining OpEx build. So yes, we certainly do want to keep an eye on dilution. That is going to be one of our key sensitivities. But we have, as I showed in the cross-sections, they're very minable sort of coherent, consistent minable zones. So really, the dilution really comes around from [indiscernible], and they are post mineral so they are true waste. So yes, so look, I think the study ultimately reflects realism. Look, there's opportunities, no doubt, in the FS to try and sharpen the pencil on that, but I think we've modeled it. And obviously, there is a deep open pit as well, getting to 450 meters, which impacts progressively higher load and haul costs over the life of mine.

Hayden Bairstow

Analysts
#5

And just on the nickel stream, I mean the recoveries are obviously low versus a lot of the other metals. I mean what do you see as opportunities? I mean I know you look at the MHP is one way of monetizing the rest of the nickel, but where do you see sort of potential wins there as you go through the full phase?

Alexander Dorsch

Executives
#6

Yes. Look, certainly, it's an opportunity, sort of 38% overall nickel recovery is not a fantastic outcome, but it is low grade. Look, we know most of that nickel is in sulfide form, somewhere around 80%. So out of the sulfide recoverable portion of the nickel, we're getting a reasonable amount of it reporting to that nickel con. But obviously, we've had to get to an 8% salable nickel grade, con grade. So that impacts that recovery number. I think the opportunity would be, is there sort of a drop in that sort of salable threshold for nickel con over time, potentially, just given that there is so few nickel sulfide mining operations left. The smelters, we think, are getting hungry and hungrier. So that sort of potentially drives us to drop the con grade over the longer term. Also, I guess, these newer sort of downstream plants being constructed in Indonesia. We've already had some engagement with pCAM players in the industry around sulfide concentrate. So we think pCAM, it's an even benefit relative to smelters, but we've taken a more conservative sort of smelter assumption for the purposes here for the PFS.

Operator

Operator
#7

Your next question comes from David Coates with Bell Potter Securities.

David Coates

Analysts
#8

I got some questions, plenty there to go through. Sort of high-level question to start with just there's always been a lot of value levers to pull on this project. Can you just sort of run us through, I guess, sort of what key factors have been in coming to the throughput rates that you've like in the PFS and the staging sequence?

Alexander Dorsch

Executives
#9

Yes. Thanks, David. I think the 5 million tonne per annum initial stage throughput was a pretty natural solution just given that we do have a bit of fixed infrastructure that needs to be built to, and we obviously need a return on that. So we were sort of targeting a plus 20% IRR on that sort of size, and that's where we landed. We do think, obviously, the Stage 2 is really option value. There is a lot of flexibility either to bring that expansion forward or potentially defer that depending on the macro environment. So at the 1,300 palladium base case price assumption, we think that Stage 2 is rightsized. But obviously, there's opportunities, like I said, to either make it bigger or make it happen quicker. That will be possible within the scope of our approvals as well. We are going for the full 14 million tonne per annum throughput rate under the regulatory approval. So we will have a degree of flexibility there. So I think it's a balance of value and risk. I think putting it in 2 stages as well allows the process plant to be derisked and understanding of the ore body to be gained in those initial years helps obviously inform and make sure the Stage 2 capital investment is appropriate in terms of plant configuration. So I think it's -- we've used sort of a trade-off of value and risk to land at that type of staging. But obviously, it's a very, very large resource, right, 280 million tonnes of inventory. So clearly, higher prices are going to deliver a progressively more leveraged upside to the financials if we increase the mine design price deck. So to reiterate there, the mine designs were done at USD 1,050 an ounce palladium. So there is a degree of conservatism there. if we see sustained higher prices, we certainly see that pit shell getting larger and the life going up and certainly room for further expansions or upsized expansions.

David Coates

Analysts
#10

Second one, just sort of looking longer out to funding. It's a long-life operation, 23-year initial mine life and obviously carries the attraction of the critical mineral site. There's plenty of debt funding on offer. How do you kind of see the -- obviously some way up, but the debt or the funding mix and the sources panning out?

Alexander Dorsch

Executives
#11

Yes. Look, I think this is a point the market really just hasn't come to grips with. People seem to read the headlines, but don't seem to understand the implications. There is a significant pool of debt funding out there for critical minerals projects, particularly ones of scale. And I think that's what differentiates this and puts it in such a different category to most other projects is just that mine life and that -- those margins over that mine life. We have had very, very good engagement with the export credit agencies and the other sovereign sort of debt providers already. It goes without saying they've already sort of become very excited and very attracted to our project, just given scale and metals mix. So really, we think there's a very, very low-cost debt financing option here. And like I said, ability to lever up the cash flows and lever up those returns considerably. We obviously can't guide to exactly what that split will be. But yes, you can sort of deduce that by looking at the margins that we have as to sort of what sort of debt we could service. We are sort of hearing sort of 10- to 15-year term on that sort of debt and obviously, very, very attractive interest rate being touted out there. So look, we're very relaxed about pulling that funding solution together. It's really about now actually -- now that we have a detailed plan to share with them really sort of engaging more formally.

David Coates

Analysts
#12

One final one. You mentioned one of the step changes for the projects being the process route in the metallurgy. You commented that you spent $15 million on net testing. Can you just give us maybe a bit of extra color or context around just the amount of work that's been done and the level of confidence that you guys have in all that work is built for you guys in choosing and designing the process that you've arrived at?

Alexander Dorsch

Executives
#13

Yes. I think it's a good point, Dave. I think a lot of juniors would have left all of that test work and that sort of investment for a feasibility study as opposed to a PFS. We made a deliberate decision to front-end all that metallurgical test work and really derisk the project from the fundamentals, geology, mineralogy, geometallurgy and obviously, metallurgical outcomes. So yes, the $15 million investment sort of plus 1,000 flotation tests, hundreds of leach tests. These are very, very well-proven outcomes now. We've based the plant design and costs and recoveries on. So look, we're very, very confident that the plant will operate as it's been laid out here. Obviously, feasibility, we will look at more refinements around geometallurgy, particularly the gangue mineralogy and obviously, optimizations, how we can extract a little bit more metal, we hope, out of the various circuits and how they interact with one another. So credit to the metallurgical team we've got and the labs we've used, 2 years' worth of work, and obviously, it's been proven on composites that have taken material from across the ore body as well. So we haven't been selective about where to get sample from. We've sort of got a proven over the entire ore body, and we've done a significant amount of variability test work as well to prove even at extremes of the ore body that we'll get the performance that we're predicting. So all of that's been done properly. All of the recoveries are programmed in on a block-by-block basis to derive a net smelter return for each block. So we're very, very confident here that this is a very robust set of parameters, and it's giving us a very good handle on value.

Operator

Operator
#14

Your next question comes from Richard Knights with Barrenjoey.

Richard Knights

Analysts
#15

Just a quick one on the environmental review document. I mean it feels like that's the critical path item now. Perhaps if you could just give us a bit more of a flavor of what's left to be done there before you submit it in 6 months' time. And then you've given, I think, an 18-month time frame from submission to approval. Obviously, it's out of your hands, but where, if at all, you see risks to that time frame?

Alexander Dorsch

Executives
#16

Yes. Thanks, Richard. I mean, I guess the process started with our referral of the project all the way back in early 2024. So the fact that we referred at that time up to 15 million tonne per annum process throughput rate sort of up to 25 years of life that has allowed the regulators to do a lot of the sort of early assessment and early sort of engagement with us as to how to design and make sure we satisfy all the requirements in those environmental review documents. So the next steps really are all the modeling is happening now on -- with -- now that the scope of the PFS is locked down. That modeling, like I said, dust noise, emissions, the usual things will go into those ERD submissions in second half next year. GHD are doing the work. So worth noting that they are the most experienced sort of engineering and sort of approvals organization in the Southwest of WA. They understand the environment and the sensitivities exceptionally well. We are very relaxed. We've had a number of site visits with regulators as well where they've come and actually had a look at the plan at the site. They've been very comfortable with what they've seen. We're very much seeing given that we own the freehold land, we're very comfortable and what we're hearing is comfort around derisking of those approvals. Obviously, there's secondary approvals, which will happen in parallel as well. We do have a state and Commonwealth process for the major environmental approvals, secondary approvals will obviously happen in parallel. I guess government support is first and foremost. We have every level of endorsement and support and validation through major and strategic project status. So I think from an approvals perspective, we've done everything right, and we've got ourselves in the right position. And we're not in Jarrah Forest, and we're not impacting Jarrah Forest. So that substantially reduces the time period for assessment in our view and substantially derisk the assessment period from our view. So we actually think probably the social factors will probably govern the overall time line. And again, we've done a huge amount of investment there. We've got a local presence in the community. We understand the community very, very well. So we've done everything in our power to sort of derisk that process. But as you quite rightly said, it is in the hands of government once those submissions have been made. And certainly, given the size and the life of this project, we think it's a pretty clear cut decision for the governments, both state and federal to find a pathway to get approvals.

Operator

Operator
#17

Your next question comes from Simone Grogan with The West Australian.

Simone Grogan

Analysts
#18

Just on that note of approval, are you likely to see any benefit from the -- or hindrance otherwise, just from the changes to the environment [indiscernible] the federal changes? Is that going to be of any use for you guys?

Alexander Dorsch

Executives
#19

Simone, look, it shouldn't impact us at all because we've referred under the previous act. So we're not subject to any of the changes that are being proposed under the EPBC Act reform. So yes, we have a pretty certain pathway from a state and Commonwealth perspective. But like I said, those will be run in parallel, and we understand those processes very, very well and the requirements.

Operator

Operator
#20

There are no further questions from the teleconference currently. I'll now hand back to Mr. Dorsch for any closing remarks.

Alexander Dorsch

Executives
#21

Thanks, Ashley. Thanks, everyone, for joining. I guess to reiterate, we're very, very happy with the outcomes we've released today with the PFS. It's a major milestone. Now we have a very, very clear development path ahead. So it moves into execution. We know that, that involves a step-up in pace and activity levels. We're prepared for that and certainly looking forward to keeping the market updated as we progress the asset. And certainly, lots of upside to chase as well as we progress the feasibility study. So thanks, everyone, for joining in.

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