As I mentioned, Pat is a retired mining executive and accomplished Chief Financial Officer with more than 30 years of executive mining industry experience. Pat was formerly an Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of PolyMet Mining Corp, and a former Senior Vice President, Finance and Treasurer of Newmont Mining. He also served in various senior management roles for Rio Tinto. We are pleased to welcome Pat to our Board and look forward to his contributions as we pursue strategic opportunities for Vista and the Mt Todd gold project. Pat joins Mike Sylvestre, who was appointed to the Board in February; Tracy Stevenson, who is the Chair of the Board; John Clark, Deborah Friedman and I as members of the Board. Now looking ahead, in addition to maintaining a strong balance sheet, we are advancing evaluations of an initially smaller scale Mt Todd project with the option for subsequent stage expansion and continuing our work with CIBC Capital Markets to maximize shareholder value.
As part of our evaluation of a stage development strategy for Mt Todd, we plan to leverage the work of previous technical studies in our evaluations of a smaller scale stage development scenario. Previous studies demonstrated the opportunity to significantly lower the initial CapEx, maintain high margins, and deliver attractive economic returns. We believe that alternative development strategies offer valuable optionality as we focus on creating shareholder value and attracting investor interest in Mt Todd. At this time, we anticipate completing a feasibility study on a smaller initial scale project in the first half of next year. In conclusion, the Mt Todd gold project is one of the largest and most advanced undeveloped gold projects in Australia with 7 million ounces of proven and probable reserves.
In addition to its size, Mt Todd offers a number of other strategic advantages. Mt Todd is ideally located in the Northern Territory of Australia, an extremely stable and mining-friendly jurisdiction. The existing project infrastructure at Mt Todd provides construction time line and risk mitigation advantages. All of the major permits to initiate development of Mt Todd had been approved. Of equal importance, we have earned the trust of the local stakeholders and are confident that our social license is firmly in hand. Our current technical programs aim to derisk the project by incorporating designs that significantly reduce the initial capital cost while maintaining competitive operating costs and preserving the option for future project expansion.
We believe Mt Todd is a superior asset and one of the most attractive development-stage gold projects, not just in Australia, but in the world. Our primary objective is to achieve a valuation for Mt Todd that is reflective of the favorable operating costs and robust project economics as demonstrated by the updated feasibility study and the fact that we hold approvals for all major permits needed to initiate development. For a more comprehensive review of the work completed by Vista on the Mt Todd project, I refer you to our corporate presentation, which can be found on our website at www.vistagold.com. We believe that Vista Gold represents an exceptional investment opportunity and that current prices represent a tremendous opportunity to establish a position or increase one’s holdings in Vista Gold.
This concludes our formal remarks. We will now respond to any questions from the participants on this call.
Operator: [Operator Instructions]
Fred Earnest: Andrew, it appears that we have no questions on the call today.
Operator: I’m just seeing one coming now from Tina Bowman [ph], Private Investor.
Unidentified Analyst: Okay. Actually, it’s Tina, T as in Tom, Tina Bowman. Okay. I’m new to investing, and I only have like 3 shares, I think. What do you think — and I missed part of the meeting, I’m so sorry, and I’m just not real smart about this kind of stuff. But what is the projected earning outlook? Like — I mean, of course, I can say I should buy more shares, but I mean, would that be wise? I mean is there going to be like a huge — more like not huge, huge, but — okay, yes.
Fred Earnest: Tina, thank you for your question. Vista Gold is a company that is advancing a project in Australia. There are no earnings at this stage in the life of the project. You will have seen that we presently trade around $0.50 a share on the NYSE American. We don’t give investing advice as a normal course of these calls. But if you would like to reach out to either — if you work with Renmark or H.C. Wainwright or any other advisers, they can provide you with appropriate advice on what you should do with your individual investing opportunities and activities. On a broad, big picture scale, given the market cap, the value of the company is determined by the market, and the reserve that we have of 7 million ounces, the value of Vista Gold presently is very cheap. And there’s a tremendous opportunity. Whether that makes sense for you at this point in time or not is something that you should consult with your individual financial advisers.
Unidentified Analyst: Okay. Yes. Sorry about that. Like I said, I’m new to investing. So I don’t know how to word my words. So but there — go ahead.
Fred Earnest: No, you go ahead and finish. I’m sorry.
Unidentified Analyst: No, no, I’m sorry, you go ahead.
Fred Earnest: I was just going to say, we appreciate you taking time to be on the call today to learn more about Vista.
Unidentified Analyst: Well, yes, I want to ensure if I should or not because I only have like 3 shares. And I know that’s not a lot. So — but I was like, okay, well, if I’m going to have shares, I should probably join. So all right.
