Chalice Takes Gonneville From PFS to Execution

Gonneville Moves From Study to Funding Test

Chalice Mining Limited (ASX:CHN) has spent the year turning Gonneville from a compelling geological discovery into a project that must now survive the more exacting tests of feasibility, approvals and finance. The company’s December 2025 Pre-Feasibility Study outlined a 23-year open-pit operation with a pre-tax NPV of A$1.4 billion, a 23% pre-tax IRR and A$4.7 billion of cumulative pre-tax free cash flow.

Those figures are based on the company’s base-case commodity assumptions and a development plan requiring about A$1.3 billion in net present cost development capital. The model also includes a maximum negative free cash flow of approximately A$820 million during Stage 1 construction, including contingency. That is the central investment tension: Gonneville has substantial projected economics, but Chalice is still an explorer-developer with no operating mine and must assemble the capital structure to build one.

Feasibility Study and Approvals Set the Critical Path

The Feasibility Study began in early 2026 and is targeted for completion in the second half of calendar 2027. Chalice is working on the study alongside offtake negotiations, project financing and environmental approvals, with a Final Investment Decision targeted for the first half of calendar 2028. If that timetable holds, the company expects a 1.5 to 2-year engineering and construction period before first production in early 2030.

Environmental modelling is complete, while Environmental Review Documents are targeted for submission to State and Commonwealth regulators in the fourth quarter of calendar 2026. The proposed mine would sit on Chalice-owned farmland, around 56% of which has already been cleared for agriculture, but approvals from both levels of government remain on the critical path. The company has also appointed Odin Partnership, led by former Anglo American chief executive Mark Cutifani, as a strategic adviser, alongside debt adviser Cutfield Freeman and an independent technical engineer.

Reserve Supports a Large Multi-Metal Operation

Gonneville’s maiden Ore Reserve stands at 260 million tonnes grading 0.86 grams per tonne 3E, containing 7.1 million ounces of platinum-group metals, 400,000 tonnes of nickel, 260,000 tonnes of copper and 43,000 tonnes of cobalt. The PFS production target averages about 220,000 ounces of 3E a year over the open-pit life, alongside 7,000 tonnes of nickel, 8,000 tonnes of copper and 700 tonnes of cobalt.

The mine plan uses a staged approach. Stage 1 would process 5 million tonnes a year during the first four years, while Stage 2 would lift sulphide throughput to an ultimate 14 million tonnes a year from around year five. Chalice says only about half of the current Mineral Resource is modelled in the open-pit study, leaving potential for future underground mining or extensions, although those possibilities are not included in the published PFS economics.

Loss Widens as Development Spending Rises

The financial statements show the cost of remaining pre-revenue. Chalice reported a FY26 net loss of A$26.2 million, compared with A$24.2 million a year earlier, while exploration and evaluation expenditure rose to A$25.6 million from A$21.0 million. Gonneville development studies and approvals accounted for A$18.8 million of the latest expenditure.

Cash and cash equivalents fell to A$51.4 million from A$70.8 million, with operating cash outflows increasing to A$21.2 million. The company also held approximately A$7.5 million of current listed investments, taking cash and listed investments to about A$59 million, and reported no debt. The annual report says informal discussions with potential financiers have indicated interest, but formal funding commitments have not yet been secured.

Exploration Adds Optionality Beyond Gonneville

Chalice is maintaining a second track of exploration while advancing its flagship project. At Deep Blue in Western Australia, first-pass drilling intersected broad, low-grade copper-silver-gold mineralisation across 1.2 kilometres of strike within a larger copper-molybdenum-silver soil anomaly. The system remains open along strike, but the drilling is described as an early test rather than a resource definition program.

Drilling is also planned at three untested IOCG gravity targets at the Callabonna joint venture in South Australia and at Warrego North in the Northern Territory during the third quarter of calendar 2026. Those programs could add exploration value, but they also compete for capital and management attention with the much larger financing and approvals task at Gonneville.