June has seen the gold price dip to 2026 lows and the forecasts for the remainder of the year varies between banks, though all are in agreement that prices are moving higher from here.

Spot gold briefly dipped below US$4000 an ounce this week, a price not seen since early November 2025.

The weakness, attributed to a cooling of tensions in the Middle East, the rising chances of a US interest rate cut and a pivot of investor interest into the SpaceX float, has resulted in several downgrades to H2 2026 forecasts.

Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs lowered its year-end price forecast by US$500/oz to US$4900/oz, citing the likelihood of a Federal Reserve rate cut.

This week, Deutsche Bank reportedly cut its Q3 gold price forecast by 22% to US$4300/oz, though it sees gold rebounding to US$4800/oz in Q4.

More upside

While several other banks lowered forecasts for gold, their target prices are well above the current spot price.

RBC Capital Markets lowered its 2026 price forecast by 17% to US$4760/oz and its 2027 forecast by 19% to US$5250/oz.

“Our updated projections incorporate a pivot in our rate outlook to tightening monetary policy and rising yields over 2H26, a change versus our prior expectation of continued easing,” analyst Kaan Peker said.

“Near-term gold price gains are challenged by this potential further upside in yields, a function of Iran war uncertainties and rising inflation expectations.

“However, a resolution of these outstanding uncertainties is forecast to result in upside to prices, which we still forecast over 2027 versus current levels.”

RBC’s scenario analysis outlines 2026 year-end upside pricing of US$6200/oz and downside of US$4700/oz, while it maintained its long-term gold price forecast of US$4000/oz.

Meanwhile, J.P. Morgan Global Research still expects gold to average US$6000/oz by the end of 2026, rising to US$6300/oz next year, though those forecasts are 4-5% lower than its February 2026 outlook.

It cut its Q3 2026 forecast by 10% to US$5300/oz.

J.P. Morgan said one of the strongest drivers of the medium and long-term bull case for gold was central bank buying, though the strong pace set between 2021 and 2025 appeared to have cooled this year.

The World Gold Council’s annual Central Banks Gold Reserves Survey, released earlier this month, revealed that 89% of reserve managers expected global central bank gold holdings to continue increasing over the next 12 months.

J.P. Morgan head of base & precious metals Greg Shearer said China appeared to be making unreported purchases.

“Chinese net imports of gold have inflected higher, coming in at 317t in the first quarter of 2026, up by nearly three times compared to the previous quarter,” he said.

“Furthermore, the People’s Bank of China has ramped up its reported purchases, from around a 1t-per-month pace for the six months through February to 5t in March and 8t in April.”

The bank also noted that China’s top 10 insurance companies received regulatory approval last year to allocate up to 1% of their assets under management to physical gold, with speculation that could be lifted to 5%.

Shearer said Fed policy should shape gold’s trajectory.

“The most significant bearish risk to our view is a macro scenario where US growth and employment remain buoyant but inflation continues to accelerate, solidifying a Fed hiking cycle this year,” he said.

“A Fed that feels emboldened by stronger employment momentum and crystallises behind a need to fight higher for longer inflation could begin to crack investor demand.

“If it occurs, we would likely see a flip to more sustained Western ETF outflows, raising a persistent headwind for gold prices, particularly amid a dip in central bank buying intensity.”

BMO Capital Markets noted this week that after five consecutive weeks of outflows, gold ETF flows turned positive again last week, totalling US$1.33 billion, driven by Europe (US$890 million) and North America (US$378 million), following the prior week’s heavy outflows.

BMO sees scope for gold prices to recover, particularly if lower oil prices eased pressure on emerging market demand and provided room for a reduction in import duties in India.

“This would likely support a rebound in physical demand, while silver and PGMs are likely to continue to lag as industrial market balances loosen.”

It sees gold averaging around US$4625/oz in H2, down 5% from its previous forecast.

Despite heightened sovereign risk in certain countries, Africa remains an active place for new gold mine developments.

New developments since the start of the decade have included Endeavour Mining’s (LSE/TSX: EDV) Lafigué in Côte d’Ivoire and Sabodala-Massawa in Senegal, Perseus Mining’s (ASX: PRU) Yaoure in Côte d’Ivoire, West African Resources’ (ASX: WAF) Sanbrado and Kiaka mines in Burkina Faso, Shandong Gold’s (SSE: 600547) Namdini in Ghana, Fortuna Mining Corp’s (TSX: FVI) Séguéla in Côte d’Ivoire, Orezone’s (TSX/ASX: ORE) Bomboré in Burkina Faso, Predictive Discovery’s (ASX: PDI) Kiniero in Guinea and Zhaojin Mining Industry Co’s (HKEX: 1818) Abujar in Côte d’Ivoire.

A June 2025 report from SCP Resource Finance described West Africa as the most dynamic region over the past 15 years for gold discoveries, new mine developments and corporate activity.

SCP said the recent mine builds had outpaced discoveries over the past 10 years and had cleared two generations of projects from the pipeline.

“We think projects that can start building in the 2026-2028 window are in the sweet spot: we think nearly all the Africa focused producers will be or are actively looking for projects within this window, and nearly all of them have built mines recently, thus are not afraid of a buy and build,” analyst Justin Chan said at the time.

There are a handful of new African gold mines under construction and several rapidly advancing through the pipeline

Under construction

Koné

Montage Gold Corp (TSX: MAU) is progressing the construction of its 8.3 million ounce Koné project in Côte d’Ivoire.

The US$885 million Koné project is forecast to produce 301,000 ounces of gold per annum at all-in sustaining costs of US$1195 an ounce in the first 10 years of a 16-year mine life.

Based on a US$4000/oz gold price, the 2024 updated feasibility study returned a post-tax net present value (5% discount rate) of US$4.8 billion and internal rate of return of 93.9%.

As of March 31, over 10.4 million hours had been worked on site by more than 3500 employees and contractors.

The company had spent US$636.5 million of the budget.

Earlier this week, Montage confirmed that Koné remained on budget and ahead of schedule with the first gold pour targeted for late in the December 2026 quarter.

Twin Hills

Twin Hills in Namibia is being developed by Shanjin International Gold Co (SZ: 000975) following its C$368 million of Osino Resources in 2024.

According to the 2023 definitive feasibility study, the project has capital costs of US$475 million and is expected to produce 162,000ozpa of gold over 13 years.

At a gold price of US$1950/oz, the project has a post-tax NPV5 of US$656 million, IRR of 36% and a payback period of 1.9 years.

Post-tax life-of-mine free cashflow was forecast at US$958 million.

The project started construction in September 2025, with first gold expected in the first quarter of 2027.

It will be Namibia’s third gold mine.

Nyanzaga

Perseus’ Nyanzaga project represents the first major gold mine development in Tanzania in 17 years.

A former Barrick project, Perseus acquired Nyanzaga via the A$276 million takeover of OreCorp in 2024.

The company wasted no time in kicking off the US$523 million development, with 48% completion as of the end of March with first gold expected in January 2027.

The project will then ramp up to 200,000ozpa from the 2028 financial year until FY41 at life-of-mine all-in-costs of US$1621/oz.

Nyanzaga has a post-tax NPV10 of US$864 million and IRR of 28.8%, based on a US$3000/oz gold price.

The addition of the mine will push Perseus’ group production profile to as high as 630,000oz of gold in FY29.

Kurmuk

Pre-commissioning activities at Allied Gold Corporation’s (TSX: AAUC) Kurmuk gold project in Ethiopia began in the second quarter, with first gold expected in mid-2026.

Following start-up, Kurmuk is expected to produce an average of 290,000ozpa of gold during the first four years and 240,000ozpa over the life of mine at AISC of US$950/oz.

Financial modelling in 2022 showed an after-tax NPV5 of US$548 million with an IRR of 25% at a gold price of US$1568/oz.

The project remains on schedule and within its US$717 million budget.

Allied, which is subject to a C$5.5 billion cash takeover offer from Zijin Gold International Company (HK: 2259), reported this month that the project was meeting key execution milestones.

Doropo

In March, Resolute Mining (ASX/LSE: RSG) made a final investment decision for its Doropo project in Côte d’Ivoire.

Capital costs are US$516 million for a 13-year operation that will produce 204,000ozpa of gold at AISC of US$1360/oz over the first five years, generating EBITDA of US$554 million and post-tax free cashflow of US$419 million.

Average life-of-mine production is estimated at 169,000ozpa at AISC of US$1360/oz.

At a US$4000/oz gold price, Doropo has a post-tax NPV5 of US$2.5 billion, IRR of 72% and a payback period of just over a year.

First gold is expected in mid-2028.

Baomahun

The Baomahun gold project in Sierra Leone is being developed by private company FG Gold and is set to be the country’s first large-scale gold mine.

The 5.8Moz project is set to produce 184,000ozpa of gold in the first five years of its life.

While the timing of first gold remains unclear, in December, FG announced that it had achieved financial close and the first drawdown on its US$330 million senior debt financing with Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), completing the project’s funding.

The senior facility complemented AFC’s initial US$100 million investment in gold streaming and mezzanine commitments.

Kobada

Toubani Resources (ASX: TRE) broke ground on the US$216 million Kobada project in Mali in March.

It comes after the company agreed terms with the Malian government in January and secured US$83.5 million in debt facilities from Coris Bank International.

Toubani earlier secured an US$80.0 million gold streaming deal with Eagle Eye Assets.

The company is targeting first gold in the third quarter of 2027 with Kobada to ramp up to produce 162,000ozpa at AISC of US$1317/oz.

At US$3000/oz, the project generates a post-tax NPV8 of US$951 million, an IRR of 79% and a payback period of 1.25 years.

Average annual operating cashflow is forecast to be US$211 million.

Tulu Kapi

KEFI Gold and Copper (AIM: KEFI) recently started construction of its 86%-owned Tulu Kapi gold project in Ethiopia after the company secured US$355 million in funding.

Production is expected to average 166,000ozpa of gold at AISC of around US$1200/oz from 2028.

Based on gold prices of US$3000-5000/oz, the project is forecast to generate average EBITDA of around US$355-697 million per annum over the first three years of production.

Total net cashflow over seven years is estimated at US$1.8-3.4 billion at gold prices of US$3000-5000/oz.

This week, KEFI signed the project’s largest operational contract, the mining services agreement, with BCM Group for the provision of services valued at more than US$400 million over the initial nine-year mine life.

Approaching FID

Bankan

The exploitation permit for Predictive Discovery’s Bankan project in Guinea is said to be imminent, which will pave the way for a final investment decision.

Once received, the US$463 million project will have a 24-month construction period.

Bankan is expected to produce around 250,000ozpa of gold over 12.2 years at AISC of US$1057/oz.

Based on a long-term consensus gold price of US$2400/oz, the project has a post-tax NPV5 of US$1.6 billion, IRR of 46% and a payback period of less than two years.

Using a gold price of US$3300/oz increases the NPV to US$2.9 billion, the IRR to 73% and reduces the payback period to just over a year.

Diamba Sud

Earlier this week, Fortuna announced that it had received the environmental decree from Senegal’s Ministry of Environment and Ecological Transition approving the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment for the Diamba Sud gold mine, paving the way for a grant of a mining permit.

The company is already advancing early works, including camp construction, ahead of a final investment decision in mid-2026.

The October 2025 preliminary economic assessment for Diamba Sud returned a post-tax IRR of 72% and NPV5 of US$563 million, based on a US$2750/oz gold price.

During the first three years of production, Diamba Sud is projected to deliver an average of 147,000ozpa at AISC of US$904/oz.

A feasibility study is well advanced with a 2026 project budget of US$100 million.

Assafou

In April, Endeavour released a DFS for its Assafou project in Côte d’Ivoire.

The company said the project had the potential to be a cornerstone asset with average production of more than 320,000ozpa at AISC of US$1026/oz over the first eight years of a 16-year mine life, based on reserves of 4.4Moz.

The study returned a post-tax NPV5 of US$2.1 billion and IRR of 28%, based on a conservative gold price of US$2500/oz, increasing to US$5.1 billion and 55% at a gold price of US$4000/oz.

Upfront capital costs are forecast at US$1.06 billion.

Early works have been launched including long-lead orders, detailed engineering and design, and key tenders.

A final investment decision is targeted before the end of this year, which will be followed by a 24 to 30-month construction period.

Studies advancing

Kokoseb

Wia Gold (ASX: WIA), chaired by Centamin founder Josef El-Raghy, is working on a DFS for the Kokoseb gold project in Namibia, which is due for completion by the end of this year.

The scoping study for the 2.93Moz project outlined an 11-year mine life with average production of 177,000ozpa in the first five years.

At a US$3450/oz gold price, the project has a post-tax NPV5 of US$1.26 billion.

Afema

On Wednesday, Turaco Gold (ASX: TCG) announced the results of a prefeasibility study for the Afema project in southeast Côte d’Ivoire, as well as a maiden 1.91Moz reserve.

The US$410 million project is expected to produce around 200,000ozpa of gold over a 10.3-year mine life from a conventional open pit operation, including 230,000oz in the first year.

At a US$3500/oz gold price, the project has a post-tax NPV5 of US$2.1 billion, IRR of 79% per annum and payback of 13 months.

Turaco is targeting the completion of a DFS in the June quarter of 2027 and first gold production in 2029.

Boundiali

Last week, Aurum Resources (ASX: AUE) released a PFS for its Boundiali gold project in northern Côte d’Ivoire.

The project has capital costs of US$342 million and a post-tax NPV5 of US$1.5 billion and an IRR of 119% at US$4076/oz gold.

Five open pits are expected to produce 1.5Moz over 11 years, with 201,000oz produced in the first year.

The company will move to a DFS with first gold targeted in the first half of 2028.

The copper price remains at close to record highs, despite some concerns about global growth.

The copper price reached US$6.63 per pound last week and remains at around US$6.35/lb.

“I think what’s really driving it is growing recognition that copper is really a critical material for a number of very important industries that are related to national security and energy security,” Sprott Asset Management CEO John Ciampaglia told the Bloor Street Capital Virtual Copper Conference.

“And those are everything from AI data centres, which are very copper intensive, to energy infrastructure systems, electric vehicles, other technologies.

“If you think about anything that has to move an electron through cable or wire, it involves copper, so it’s very important.”

Over the past 100 years, copper demand has roughly doubled every 25 years, a pattern which Ciampaglia believes remains on track.

He pointed out that it wasn’t just data centre demand driving copper but traditional electronics like whitegoods.

“People get very excited about electric vehicles, the copper intensity of those AI data centres, but it’s a lot of just very basic things that we take for granted every day, where hundreds of millions of people in the world want to enjoy the privileges of having a washer, dryer, or air conditioner,” he said.

“Those are all very copper intensive.”

The copper price has proved to be resilient in the face of concerns about a global recession.

“People call it Dr Copper, and they use that expression to describe copper as a barometer for the health of the global economy, so if the global economy wasn’t feeling well, for whatever reason, recessions, the price of copper would fall,” Ciampaglia said.

“What you’re starting to see is copper kind of beating to its own drum and decoupling from softer economic growth around the world, and that’s because copper is becoming less important as a traditional industrial metal and more important for these kind of new technologies and new sectors of the economy, so that old relationship I think is starting to fade away.”

Supply remains difficult

Global copper supply has continued to experience disruptions due to the mudslide at Grasberg in Indonesia and seismic activity at Kamoa-Kakula in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ciampaglia said a lot of the easy copper had already been mined and newer supply would likely come from more geopolitically or socially challenging places.

“The copper in the ground is just going to take more work and become more expensive to actually extract it, and I think that’s one of the key signals why copper has been very resilient and also has kind of really decoupled from other more historically industrial metals,” he said.

Lead times for large copper mines have blown out to 15-20 years.

“But also, the capital expenditure to build these projects. It’s not a US$1-2 billion endeavour. Some of these projects are US$15-20 billion to build, and you can imagine, as stewards of shareholder capital, management teams at these copper companies are being very disciplined and careful not to bring on capacity, unless they believe demand is going to be there,” Ciampaglia said.

“Obviously the pricing is going to be durable in order to justify these big investments, and that math is starting to happen.

“People talk about copper being at an all-time high – that’s great – but think about it in inflation-adjusted terms.

“Obviously, the copper price is higher than the last cycle, but in inflation-adjusted terms, we’re still at much lower levels, so we think there’s more room to incentivise the new production that we ultimately will need to bring on in order to rebalance the market.”

New player

The newest global copper developer is Ross Beaty’s Lumina Metals Corp (TSX: LMCU), which listed in Toronto last month after a C$421.2 million initial public offering.

The company was formed 15 years ago and has been privately funded, discovering three copper-silver projects in Poland.

“When we came in in 2011, we realised that the country had lots of potential for copper,” Beaty told the conference.

“It was expensive work. We spent about C$150 million discovering the three deposits that we have right now, and we’ve outlined what is actually probably the world’s largest undeveloped silver and copper deposit called Nowa Sól, as well as two other deposits, which have been less explored, so it’s got world-class deposits.”

Nowa Sól has measured and indicated resources of 604 million tonnes at 1.24% copper and 38 grams per tonne silver, as well as an additional 112Mt of inferred resources.

The project contains 8.7Mt of copper and 847 million ounces of silver.

A preliminary economic assessment returned a post-tax net present value (7% discount rate) of US$1.6 billion and an internal rate of return of 10.8%.

Lumina formally kicked off a prefeasibility study last month, led by Fluor Corporation, with a targeted completion date of the second half of next year.

At the start of May, Lumina entered into a letter of intent with Polish state-owned miner KGHM Polska Miedź to establish a framework for discussions regarding possible strategic directions of cooperation and potential supply of copper concentrate from the Nowa Sól project to KGHM’s copper smelters.

Beaty holds 36% of the company, which has a market capitalisation of C$1.1 billion.

“Lumina Metals is going to be my last company, so I hope we go out with a bang,” he said.

Elliott Investment Management has taken aim at the underperformance of Australia’s largest listed gold miner Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST).

The activist fund holds more than A$1 billion worth of Northern Star shares and released a presentation on Monday night, US time, entitled ‘Northern Star Rising’.

Northern Star shares slumped by nearly 25% in the first five months of 2026 following four guidance downgrades.

In 2021, it set a target of 2 million ounces per annum of gold production by this year. Its 2026 financial year guidance was initially set at 1.7-1.85Moz, but following the downgrades, its most recent forecast was “above 1.5Moz”.

Less than two weeks ago, it was announced that managing director Stuart Tonkin would step down during the September quarter after 13 years with the company, initially as chief operating officer, then CEO, and managing director since 2021.

“Northern Star’s recent pattern of operational missteps, cost overruns and inconsistent strategic direction demands urgent action,” Elliott said in a statement.

Elliott said Northern Star was deeply underperforming against its potential.

It cited a 203% total return underperformance versus its peers over the last three years, the lowest P/NAV and EBITDA multiples of any peer, repeated operational missteps, seven guidance misses in the past four financial years, and deeply inadequate disclosures compared to global senior peers.

The criticism came after BlackRock lamented the absence of a global gold major in Australia last week.

Strategic review

Elliott said Northern Star owed it to its shareholders to explore all strategic alternatives, including a sale of the company.

“We believe there would be significant strategic interest in Northern Star,” it said.

Elliott believes Northern Star could be attractive to Agnico Eagle Mines (TSX: AEM), Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM), Gold Fields (JSE: GFI) and AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE: AU), all of which already operate in Western Australia.

However, Gold Fields quickly sold the stake in Northern Star it acquired via last year’s takeover of Gold Road Resources, while AngloGold has indicated it could retreat from Australia.

But Elliott pointed out that neither company owned what it classified as a tier one, low-cost asset, and that Northern Star’s KCGM operation could rectify that.

It noted that once an expansion at KCGM was completed in the coming months, it had the potential to become the world’s second-largest 500,000 ounce per annum producer in a tier one jurisdiction behind Carlin in Nevada.

Of the four potential suitors listed by Elliott, it said only AngloGold had a tier one growth project in Arthur in Nevada with the potential to produce more than 500,000ozpa of gold, and Northern Star’s Hemi could fill a gap for the other three.

“Northern Star offers long-lived assets, growth in high-quality jurisdictions and a tier one development project,” Elliott said.

“We believe a substantial premium for NST would be NAV-per-share accretive for all relevant acquirors, with additional synergy and NAV expansion potential.”

After Northern Star’s fourth 2026 guidance reduction in March, Tonkin was asked if the company had become more vulnerable to an opportunistic takeover.

“Our attitude around this is we see enormous long-term value, so we’ve got to work to restore that and build that up,” he said.

“I won’t comment on vulnerability or otherwise, or takeover risks, but my attitude is, we’ve got work to do. We know what we’re doing. It’s going to take some time, and it’s something the board takes seriously and reviews.”

The turnaround

The other option for Northern Star, said Elliott, was to pursue an operational reset.

It called for the company to hire a world-class external CEO with extensive gold mining experience.

“Northern Star should work with Elliott to identify highly qualified new directors to support and bolster the credibility of the strategic and operational reviews and CEO search,” Elliott said.

Once the new CEO was in place, Elliott said the company should launch a comprehensive operational review focused on improved asset reliability, efficiency, and exploration.

It also called for Northern Star to hold an investor day with clear medium-term targets and strategic vision, including the results of the operational review.

Northern Star previously held regular investor days but had not held one since 2021.

Finally, Elliott called for improved investor communications and disclosures, including detailed technical reports and mine plans.

Elliott said the strategic review and turnaround processes should run in tandem.

“A strategic review and a standalone turnaround plan are not mutually exclusive,” it said.

“The board must move on both fronts simultaneously to demonstrate urgency and maximise shareholder value.”

Northern Star responds

Shares in Northern Star jumped by 13.6% on the ASX on Tuesday after Elliott’s presentation was released.

On Tuesday afternoon, Northern Star released a response.

“The Northern Star board shares Elliott’s view that Northern Star has the portfolio of assets needed to deliver superior returns to shareholders,” it said.

“The Northern Star board and management team frequently engage with our shareholders to hear their perspectives and welcome the opportunity for constructive dialogue with Elliott, as a shareholder of the company.”

It noted that the search for a new managing director was well underway with an international search firm appointed and discussions with potential candidates taking place.

“The company remains focused on delivering full-year guidance and commissioning of the KCGM mill expansion, which remains on track to occur in early FY27,” the company said.

Northern Star added that, in conjunction with its financial advisor Goldman Sachs, it regularly reviewed corporate opportunities, “including in relation to managing its existing portfolio of assets and potential broader M&A opportunities”.

The stoppage has not followed the procedures required to constitute a legal strike (no strike notice was filed). A conciliation meeting with Mexico’s Department of Federal Labor is scheduled for tomorrow, June 2.

Orla’s stock dropped 8.1% on the day. Equinox Gold, which is acquiring Orla in a 1:1 all-stock merger, fell 7.7%.

What the Spread Signals

The EQX-OLA deal is structured as a 1:1 share exchange. In a perfectly priced deal with zero completion risk, the two stocks should trade at parity. Any divergence is the merger arbitrage spread: the market’s real-time verdict on whether the deal will close at the agreed terms.

At the announcement, the spread was negligible (+0.3%). Over the past three weeks, it has drifted wider, settling at +1.0% by last Friday. Today it jumped to +1.5% — the widest level in the dataset.

A positive spread means Orla trades below its deal-implied value. In plain terms: the market thinks there is a small but growing probability that OLA shareholders receive less than one full EQX share of value at close, whether through deal renegotiation, a failed vote, or an outright termination.

Gold Price Impact

Gold closed at $4,494/oz today, up 0.2%. Silver was up 0.4%. Both stocks fell nearly 8% on a day the underlying commodity was flat to positive.

That confirms Camino Rojo-specific operational risk is repricing both sides of the deal; Orla because it’s their mine, Equinox because they’re about to own it.

Scenarios

Camino Rojo is a load-bearing piece of this transaction. It’s Orla’s primary producing asset and a principal reason Equinox agreed to a 1:1 ratio, valuing Orla at effective parity. So, there are three possible scenarios from here:

Quick resolution (days). The conciliation meeting produces a settlement, workers return, and production resumes. The spread compresses back toward 1%, and both sides proceed to a shareholder vote. This is the base case, especially since wildcat PTU disputes at Mexican mines are not uncommon during profit-sharing season and typically resolve within days.

Prolonged stoppage (weeks). Orla is forced to revise production guidance. The 1:1 ratio starts to look generous to Orla shareholders (whose standalone asset is impaired) and expensive to Equinox shareholders (who are absorbing a disrupted mine). Internal pressure builds on Equinox’s board to seek a ratio adjustment. The spread widens past 3%.

Structural labor problem. If the blockade reveals deeper union dynamics, jurisdictional disputes, political entanglements, and the risk of repeat stoppages, it could trigger a Material Adverse Effect review under the merger agreement. MAE claims on labor disputes are notoriously hard to sustain, but the threat alone could delay the closing timeline and push the spread toward 5%+.

What to Watch

The arb spread is the market’s composite risk score for this deal. At +1.5%, the verdict is clear: this is a bump, not a dealbreaker. But the direction is what matters. The spread has moved in one direction (wider) for three straight weeks, and today’s Camino Rojo news accelerated the trend.

If the conciliation meeting tomorrow produces a framework for resolution, expect the spread to stabilize. If it doesn’t, the next data point is whether Orla updates production guidance and how Equinox responds.

The Denver Gold Group does not provide investment advice. This analysis is for informational purposes only and reflects the opinion of the author based on publicly available data as of June 1, 2026.

The Australian gold space doesn’t have a true global major, but does bigger actually equal better?

BlackRock is a major investor in the Australian gold sector.

“I guess one of the things that the Australian gold universe sort of lacks is those big, sizable, scaled producers,” BlackRock portfolio manager Olivia Markham told the AFR Mining Summit in Perth last week.

“You don’t have anything like the scale of a Newmont or a Barrick or Agnico Eagle sitting here in Australia.

“The other thing, which is actually kind of one of our favourite ways to get exposure to gold – depending on where we are in the cycle – but it’s to invest in the gold royalty companies that massively outperformed the gold producers over the last 15 years.

“Once again, that ecosystem doesn’t exist [in Australia].”

Australia’s largest gold producer is A$26.5 billion Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST), which is down nearly 25% year-to-date due to a series of guidance misses.

The next largest is A$25 billion Evolution Mining (ASX: EVN), with the remainder of Australia’s mid-tier space having market capitalisations of less than A$10 billion.

“The skills, absolutely, in that kind of mid-cap space is really deep, it’s really solid here,” Markham said.

“It’s just we don’t have that same scale as much in Australia versus what we see in the North American space.”

The opportunity

Evolution chairman Jake Klein said the lack of scale represented an opportunity for Australia.

“Most of those mines, which are now operated by foreign producers, used to be owned by Australian producers,” Klein said.

“As Olivia from BlackRock said, we have a great depth of talent here. We have great companies in that mid-tier sector, but we haven’t really gone on to create global leaders in the sector.”

Klein said Newcrest Mining was the closest thing Australia had to a major before its US$17 billion buy-out by Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM) in early 2024, while Normandy Mining, acquired by Newmont in 2002 was an earlier example.

“Those are companies that got a long way and were well recognised, but got taken out by majors, so we’ve actually contributed to these majors,” Klein said.

“I think if we can continue to deliver superior returns, the money will come, and I think we should try and get there the whole way.

“Evolution, Northern Star, a number of companies are kind of emerging into that space, but we’ve got a longer way to go, but takeover is not necessarily the end objective.”

However, Klein reiterated that Evolution was not chasing size for size’s sake.

“We are a bit frustrated that so many investors look at production top line growth when the better measure is really the quality of that growth,” he said.

“How big are the margins? Our margins are great, they’re over 60%, and then what is the longevity of that those margins? What’s the mine life?

“So, the quality of the portfolio and the quality of the ounces really matter, and I think if there could be a shift from an investor perspective towards really trying to get to that level of these are businesses – they are delivering cashflow, the longevity of that cashflow is really important, and the quality of the assets, in addition, quality of management, but that’s a judgement call – that’s what makes very good gold companies.”

Aussie consolidation

VanEck’s Imaru Casanova told the event she saw Australia as being ripe for consolidation in the gold sector, though she stressed bigger wasn’t necessarily better.

“The best consolidation is regional, it’s rational, and it’s tracked,” she said.

“Strong, proven management teams controlling more assets – we’re all up for that.

“What doesn’t work? Scale for its own sake, diluted management focus, cross-continental complexity, synergies that are never delivered, integration risk that is always underestimated, poor rushed due diligence that leads to material surprises.

“We want growth that makes sense, regional know-how that can be leveraged, manageable size – 6-8 operations – clearly stated synergies with honest post-mortems, and quarterly tracking against commitments.”

So far this year in Australia, Genesis Minerals (ASX: GMD) has announced the A$639 million scrip acquisition of Magnetic Resources (ASX: MAU), a deal viewed as logical further consolidation of the Leonora-Laverton district of Western Australia.

Last month, WA mid-tier producers Regis Resources (ASX: RRL) and Vault Minerals (ASX: VAU) announced a merger of equals.

The companies have spruiked tax synergies of A$500 million, but analysts have noted the lack of operational synergies.

Wayne Bramwell, managing director of fellow WA mid-tier producer Westgold Resources (ASX/TSX: WGX), said it was for Vault shareholders to decide on the merits of the deal when they met to vote on it in the September quarter.

“Stand back a little bit further, then it’ll be the BlackRocks of the world and VanEck, which will then decide later on whether that much larger company is a better investment opportunity,” he said.

“Longer term, the new expanded Regis will have much larger firepower and be of a scale similar to Evolution, so time will tell, and everyone will have a different view.”

Klein said Evolution, which had acquired all of its operating assets, focused on deals that were accretive.

“There has to be an arbitrage in it that the market didn’t see,” he said.

“Thinking that one plus one is somehow by going to make three, I think is wishful.

“So, I’m not judging the Vault-Regis deal, I’m just saying that for the M&A which BlackRock, VanEck and AustralianSuper really want to see, you need an underlying arbitrage in the value that the markets not seeing to make the combination work.”

Klein said physical closeness of assets was the obvious, but not necessarily the only, upside.

“What are the things the markets are missing? Is it exploration upside that maybe the market’s not understanding?” he said.

“But there needs to be something more than just ‘we hope the market’s going to like us because we’re bigger’.”

While Westgold got significantly larger through the merger with Karora Resources in mid-2025, it’s more recently been a seller, offloading assets to Valiant Gold (ASX: VAL), Alicanto Minerals (ASX: AQI) and Corazon Mining (ASX: CZN).

“We’ve been divesting assets, and in some sense, I think it’s a really smart thing to do,” Bramwell said.

“The Australian gold sector has lost at least four explorers through merger and takeover in the last 12 months.

“Westgold itself has probably catalysed two new producers in the last 12 months, so we are trying to backfill the bottom end as the other ones at the top are getting taken out.”

It’s not easy being a specialist gold fund manager, according to VanEck portfolio manager, gold and precious metals strategy Imaru Casanova.

Speaking via video link from New York at this week’s AFR Mining Summit in Perth, Casanova lamented the lack of generalist investor interest in the gold sector.

“There’s a particular kind of frustration that comes with running a specialist fund in a sector you know so well, like I know this one and have been involved with for so long, and believe deeply in, at a time when everything is going right and still not be able to get investors more broadly to pay attention,” she said.

“Gold is at all-time highs. Producers are carrying the best balance sheets they’ve had in a generation. Free cashflow is strong. Management teams, by and large, are showing more discipline than this sector has historically been known for by almost every measure.

“The conditions for a sustained re-rating of gold equities are in place, and yet the generalist investor is largely absent. The capital that could flow into this sector, and that this sector deserves, is sitting on the sidelines. It’s going into gold ETFs, or it’s going somewhere else entirely.”

What’s missing?

Based on conversations with generalist investors, Casanova said there was one thing needed to achieve a re-rating in gold equities – trust.

“I spent a lot of time talking to existing and potential clients about gold and gold equities, and at some point, almost always, during the conversation, we get the question, the comment, that makes it clear that they see the opportunity, but they’re not yet convinced,” she said.

“It’s not scepticism about gold – it is the lack of trust in gold equities as the right vehicle to get exposure to gold.”

Casanova said the memories of value destruction in the previous cycle was still too fresh in some investors’ minds.

There was still a perception of poorly conceived mergers and acquisitions, cost creep, dividend fragility, low returns and hard-to-manage risks.

“These are not irrational fears – they’re the accumulated memory of a sector that in the past has let investors down,” Casanova said.

The road back

Casanova offered six principles to convert sceptical capital into committed shareholders.

“Protect your leverage to the gold price, defend margins, and fight cost inflation, regardless of the gold price environment,” she said.

“Avoid hedging too much of your production – it removes the main reason investors want to own gold equities.”

Casanova said gold miners should set guidance they could beat and aim to under-promise and overdeliver every time.

“A consistent track record of delivery does compound into a valuation premium,” she said.

Value creation should also be defined.

“State your ROIC target, your hurdle rates publicly, then report against them,” Casanova said.

“If you won’t measure it, the market won’t believe it.”

The fourth principle is accountability.

“This is a complex and risky business. Things will go wrong,” Casanova said.

“When something goes wrong, own it early, explain it clearly, and show what changes were made to address it and learn from those lessons.”

Simplicity is also important, according to Casanova.

“One strategy, consistently executed,” she said.

“The best gold companies are boring in the best way possible – we like it that way.

“Additional complexity is a red flag.”

Any M&A should be clearly justified and promised synergies and savings should be tracked and reported quarterly.

“This single change would do a great deal for sector re-rating,” Casanova said.

Expanding on M&A, Casanova said the best consolidation was regional, rational and tracked.

“Strong, proven management teams controlling more assets – we’re all up for that,” she said.

“What doesn’t work? Scale for its own sake, diluted management focus, cross-continental complexity synergies that are never delivered, integration risk that is always underestimated, poor, rushed due diligence that leads to material surprises.

“We want growth that makes sense, regional know-how that can be leveraged, manageable size – six to eight operations – clearly stated synergies with honest post-mortems, and quarterly tracking against commitments.”

Scarcest resource

Casanova said a big component of a company’s success and the most important driver behind building trust was management.

“Unfortunately, that might be the scarcest of all resources in this industry,” she said.

“Elite, tier one management. We focus a lot on tier one assets, but what we really need more of in this industry is tier one teams that can produce gold profitably from even the most challenging deposits.”

She said the characteristics of successful management teams were proven success through a full cycle – not just a bull run, technical expertise and regional know-how, capital allocation discipline, quality communication and a well-articulated strategy, stability and succession, and skin in the game.

“This is a highly fragmented sector, and with too many assets in too many hands, more companies and assets than it has great teams to run them,” Casanova said.

“Poor leadership can destroy value at every stage of the gold mining cycle – we all have seen that in action.”

Casanova said the only way to achieve a re-rating was to build trust.

“If we build it, they will come. Isn’t that what they say? We need more than just specialist mining funds. We need generalist capital,” she said.

“A small allocation from the generalist pool can have large implications in what’s a relatively small sector.

“Companies with trusted management retain shareholders in downturns. They consistently demonstrate the ability to navigate the cycles.”

Casanova said gold equities needed to earn their seat at the table.

“The opportunity in front of this sector is larger than the next quarterly result or the next resource upgrade,” she said.

“If the industry continues on this current path – disciplined, transparent, accountable – gold mining equities can earn something that has long eluded them: a permanent place on the radar of global investors, a recognised allocation slip sitting right alongside other real assets and natural resources, and hard asset strategies in sophisticated portfolios around the globe.

“Not just owned opportunistically when gold spikes, but held structurally because the case is compelling and the trust has been built – that is the real prize – and I feel for the first time this is genuinely within reach.”

Consequently, the viewership data from Mining Forum Europe 2026 (Zürich, April 13–15) merits detailed examination. The results of sixty member companies, with engagement spanning views, cumulative watch hours, and per-view dwell time, reveal more than a month’s worth of video consumption.

The Concentration Discloses the Hunt

The top five presenting companies absorbed 41.1 percent of total views, the top ten 56.3 percent, and the top fifteen nearly two-thirds of all attentional spend. A Pareto distribution of this severity is unremarkable in itself, since investor attention has always concentrated, however the composition of that concentration is the operative finding.

The five names at the head of the table, in descending order of cumulative engagement, are Greatland Resources [$9.13 | $6.1Bn] (engagement index 100, by definition the cohort leader), Hycroft Mining [$33.50 | $3.1Bn] (index 73), NorthIsle Copper and Gold [$2.10 | $696M] (index 46), Aya Gold & Silver [$19.32 | $2.8Bn] (index 47), and Discovery [$5.94 | $4.8Bn] (index 31). Of those five, only one, Aya, is a conventional mid-cap producer; the other four are either developer-stage stories with catalysts pending or producers whose narrative is functionally indistinguishable from a developer’s. Greatland and NorthIsle in particular are pre-production names whose institutional thesis depends on permits, financing, and feasibility milestones that the market is presently underwriting at substantial premia.

The largest names by enterprise value did not command the largest share of post-conference institutional attention, and the inversion is not a quirk of the data but a category of evidence suggesting that optionality is highly prized at this point in the cycle.

The Stage Inversion

Producers, who constitute 100/209 DGG member companies, accounted for 58.1 percent of total views. That share is proportionate, however, Developer (PEA/scoping) members, of whom only twenty-one exist in the DGG corpus and only six appeared in the webcast cohort, absorbed 20.9 percent of total views, which is to say that this stage segment over-indexed against its membership representation by a factor of roughly four. On a per-company-mean basis, normalizing the producer cohort to 100, the PEA/scoping segment indexes at 210, the early-stage explorer segment at 81, royalty/streaming at 70, construction/feasibility developers at 65, and advanced explorers at 61. The market is paying a structural attention premium to stories that are pre-cashflow, pre-construction-decision, and dependent on a sequence of catalysts that have yet to be fully priced.

Indeed, the dispersion by stage is so pronounced that it functions as a leading indicator of where 2026 and 2027 capital expenditure announcements may originate and ahead of possible equity raises.

Geography and Commodity: The Compounding Effects

The stage-level inversion documented above does not operate in isolation. When the cohort is sliced by primary commodity and primary jurisdiction of operation, two further axes of dispersion emerge, and the interaction between them sharpens rather than dilutes the central thesis. Capital is not merely chasing the pre-cashflow stage; capital is chasing the pre-cashflow stage in specific jurisdictions.

Regional Concentration: The Oceania Surprise and the African Discount

The aggregate regional distribution is best read alongside the share of presenters from each region, since proportionality is the operative test. The Americas region, comprising forty-one of the sixty cohort presenters, absorbed 65.7 percent of all webcast views, which is, on its face, proportionate to its 68.3 percent share of presenter slots. The story is in the smaller regions. Oceania, with seven presenters or 11.7 percent of the cohort, absorbed 21.6 percent of all views, an over-index of roughly 1.8 times on a share basis. Africa, also with seven presenters, absorbed 8.9 percent of views, an under-index of approximately 0.8 times. Europe, with four presenters, absorbed 3.4 percent. Asia, with a single presenter, absorbed 0.4 percent.

Of the regional Oceania total, Greatland Resources alone, an Australian gold-copper developer-to-producer story, accounts for the lion’s share. Strip Greatland out of the Oceania cohort, and the regional mean view index falls from 23 to roughly 12, which is to say proportionate to the Americas. The Oceania finding is therefore not necessarily a structural Australian premium; it is the Greatland phenomenon expressed at the regional aggregation level. The remaining Australian and Papua New Guinean names (Alkane [$1.00 | $1.4Bn], K92 Mining [$13.55 | $4.2Bn], Ramelius Resources [$2.22 | $4.2Bn], and others) sit closer to the cohort median than to its leader.

The African discount, by contrast, is structural at this point. Seven African presenters delivered a mean view index of 9 against a cohort mean of approximately 14, with a mean dwell index of 48 against the cohort norm of roughly 56, and a mean trailing one-year total return of 37 percent against the cohort mean above 130 percent. Western Africa is the most pronounced underperformer at every level, with Galiano Gold [$2.26 | $591M], Fortuna Mining [$9.94 | $3.0Bn], and Newcore Gold collectively averaging a view index in the mid-single digits and dwell indices well below cohort. Eastern and Southern Africa, comprising DRDGOLD [$2.63 | $2.3Bn] and Kenmare Resources [$2.79 | $258M] at the producer level, fare little better. The sole African exception is Aya Gold & Silver in Morocco, which sits in the top five of the entire cohort on engagement and posted a 117.9 percent trailing return. Northern Africa, in other words, is not analytically grouped with sub-Saharan Africa by the European institutional pool; Morocco trades more closely with a Southern European jurisdiction than with its continental peers, probably because of rising sovereign risks elsewhere on the continent.

The North American Developer Outperformance

The single sharpest cross-cut in the dataset, however, is the comparison between North American developers and developers domiciled elsewhere. The North American developer cohort, comprising eleven companies operating primarily in the United States or Canada, registers a per-company mean view index more than 2.6 times that of the five non-North American developers in the captured cohort. Mean dwell time is broadly comparable between the two groups, however the engagement intensity, measured by sheer view volume, is materially different. The trailing one-year total return spread is the more remarkable finding: North American developers averaged 258.1 percent, compared with 110.3 percent for the rest-of-world developer cohort, a ratio of roughly 2.3.

The composition of the North American developer cohort discloses the underlying thesis. United States nameplates, specifically Hycroft Mining (Nevada), Lahontan Gold Corp [$0.29 | $121M] (Nevada), Liberty Gold Corp. [$1.20 | $637M] (Idaho and Nevada), Perpetua Resources [$26.97 | $3.4Bn] (Idaho), and NOVAGOLD [$8.43 | $2.8Bn] (Alaska), account for the majority of the views, and their one-year returns range from 91.4 percent to 951.97 percent, with a cohort-leading return profile that the buyside appears to have substantially anticipated. Canadian developers, including NorthIsle Copper and Gold (British Columbia), Osisko Development [$2.86 | $870M] (multiple Canadian jurisdictions), and Abcourt Mines Inc. (Quebec), round out the cohort and contribute to the regional skew. Capital is, in plain English, underwriting the political-permitting tailwind that the United States and Canada are currently understood to offer to the construction-stage gold and silver development pipeline, and the European institutional pool has done the work to position for the next financing windows in that pipeline.

Commodity Cuts: Gold Dominates Slots, Copper Dominates Per-Company Attention

The commodity distribution is asymmetric in a different sense. Gold-primary companies constituted fifty of the sixty cohort presenters, or 83 percent of slots, and absorbed 80.2 percent of total views, which is essentially proportionate. Silver-primary companies, comprising eight of the cohort, delivered a per-company mean view index of 99 against a gold baseline of 100, which is to say silver indexes at parity with gold on engagement, however the silver cohort posted a substantially higher mean trailing one-year return of 192 percent against gold’s 122 percent. Silver is being underwritten with comparable analytical attention but has delivered a measurably superior return profile, a finding that should be expected to feature in 2026 commodity-weighted allocation discussions.

The copper finding, while statistically thin at n=1, is worth flagging. The sole copper-primary presenter in the captured cohort, NorthIsle Copper and Gold, sits at engagement index 47, the third-highest in the cohort, and posted a trailing return of 212.9 percent. The implication is not that copper-primary names are systematically attention magnets, since the sample size precludes that conclusion, but rather that the MFE conference programming committee should expect copper-primary applications for MFA26 to be received with substantial buyside interest. The structural under-allocation of copper-primary presentation slots relative to copper-primary investor interest is the operational finding for conference programmers and member acquisition staff.

The silver cohort, finally, geographically concentrates in Mexico (First Majestic Silver Corp., Avino Silver & Gold Mines, Guanajuato Silver) and the United States (Hecla Mining, Andean Precious Metals, Americas Gold & Silver), with two notable peripheral additions in Aya (Morocco) and Kuya Silver [$1.13 | $48M] (Peru). The Mexican silver-jurisdiction concentration is the operational corollary to the North American developer finding above, in that capital is paying simultaneously for jurisdictional clarity, commodity exposure, and the developer-to-producer-stage transition. The intersection of those three vectors is where the cohort’s highest engagement-and-return signals concentrate.

Dwell Time as Conviction Proxy

Raw view counts are necessary but insufficient. The companion variable, average watch duration, is, in many respects, the more revealing one, because it filters out click-curiosity from substantive analytical engagement. Against a dwell-time leader normalized to 100, the cohort mean watch time indexes at 56, which is to say that viewers were consuming between half and two-thirds of the median presentation, a high completion ratio by any reasonable industry benchmark.

The names in the dwell-time top ten are not, with one or two exceptions, the names at the top of the view-count leaderboard, and that decoupling is itself informative. A high view count with a moderate dwell time, as exhibited by Hycroft Mining at a view index of 85 against a dwell index of 54, indicates broad institutional triage; many desks looked, fewer stayed to the end. A moderate view count with a long dwell time, as exhibited by Contango [$20.22 | $622M] or Signature Resources [$0.03 | $6M], indicates the inverse profile, namely a smaller and more deliberate analytical cohort that watched the presentation to completion and very likely returned to sections they wished to re-examine.

Short dwell times are consistent with viewers checking for incremental disclosure rather than absorbing the narrative from scratch. That pattern, repeated across multiple majors, is consistent with a market that has already priced what it knows about producer fundamentals and is allocating its incremental attention elsewhere.

The Views-per-Market-Cap Disproportion

Normalizing total views by market capitalization isolates the names where institutional attention is structurally disproportionate to enterprise value, and the resulting table is, in our judgment, the single most actionable cut of the data.

Solitario Resources Corp. [$0.83 | $77M], at a $77.3 million market capitalization, leads the disproportion table at index 100, by definition. Abcourt Mines Inc. [$0.06 | $69M] follows at index 96. Lahontan Gold Corp indexes at 63. West Red Lake Gold Mines [$0.48 | $200M] at 43. NorthIsle Copper and Gold at 38. ORVANA [$1.42 | $194M] at 31. Each of these names sits at least an order of magnitude above the cohort median on this metric, and four of the six are pre-production or early-production stories whose share price performance over the trailing twelve months has been correspondingly distinguished, with Lahontan up 381 percent, NorthIsle up 213 percent, and ORVANA up 228 percent. Notably, five of the six disproportion leaders operate primarily in North America, which reinforces the regional outperformance finding established in the previous section.

The corollary finding, that one-year total returns increase across view quartiles, is the empirical capstone.

The first (lowest) view quartile posted a mean trailing return of 82.6 percent. The second posted 139.9 percent. The third posted 113.7 percent. The fourth (highest) posted 184.5 percent. Webcast viewership at MFE25 and across the intervening cycle was, in other words, a leading indicator of price performance in the year that followed. The crowd, on this evidence, was right; the buy-side identified the names that worked, watched them with measurable intensity, and the market subsequently confirmed the thesis.

What the Data Forecasts for 2026 Capital Allocation

Several conclusions follow, each with implications for capital expenditure and capital allocation over the balance of the cycle.

First, the developer cohort will be the source of the bulk of 2026 institutional financing activity, and the North American developer subset will be where the activity concentrates. Hycroft Mining’s 951.97 percent trailing return, paired with an engagement index of 73 against the cohort leader, is not a retrospective curiosity; it is a template. Buyside desks that have already absorbed that volume of company narrative are, by the time the bookbuild opens, in a position to participate at scale. Expect the equity-raise calendar from the United States and Canadian PEA-scoping and construction-feasibility cohorts to remain unusually active, with particular emphasis on the project pipelines in Nevada, Idaho, British Columbia, and Quebec.

Second, the silver and silver-leveraged producers continue to command structurally disproportionate attention relative to their market capitalizations and have delivered the highest returns among commodity cohorts. Aya Gold & Silver, First Majestic Silver Corp., and Minera Alamos all over-indexed in the captured cohort, and the geographic concentration in Mexico and the United States compounds with the developer-stage premium documented above. Capital allocation decisions in the silver developer-to-producer transition should be expected to follow, with particular focus on Mexican and US-jurisdictional names.

Third, the African presentation cohort, with the singular Moroccan exception, is being systematically discounted by the European institutional pool. Western African gold producers, in particular, are receiving roughly half the engagement intensity and one-third the trailing returns of the cohort mean, and dwell-time data indicate that the discount is not a function of unfamiliarity but of active disengagement. Members operating primarily in West African jurisdictions should expect a structural attention gap to persist absent material disclosure events.

Fourth, and consequently, the names sitting at the intersection of high view count, long dwell time, North American jurisdiction, and modest market capitalization, namely the cohort that includes Greatland, NorthIsle, Aya, Minera Alamos, Discovery, Alkane, i-80 Gold [$1.61 | $1.4Bn], and the West Red Lake Gold Mines / Lahontan / Hycroft cluster, are the names whose 2026 and 2027 capital expenditure announcements, project financings, joint ventures, and merger and acquisition activity will be most heavily anticipated by the European institutional pool an leading into Mining Forum Americas 2026 this coming September. The pre-positioning is already in the data; the realization will follow in the calendar.

Methodological Note

Webcast viewership is not, and has never been, a substitute for fundamental analysis, technical disclosure review, or independent due diligence. The metrics presented here measure attentional flow, not geological merit, financing capacity, or management quality. Nevertheless, in markets where information asymmetry has been substantially compressed by regulatory disclosure regimes and where the marginal investor’s edge is increasingly procedural rather than informational, the question of which presentations the institutional cohort chose to rewatch, and for how long, is itself a question of professional consequence. The MFE26 dataset answers it with unusual clarity.

The full session library remains available at https://europe.miningforum.com/agenda/

The next major checkpoint, Mining Forum Americas 2026, convenes September 27–30 at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, and registration and viewership patterns from MFE26 already suggest a follow-on cycle of heightened interest among developer cohorts, particularly in North American jurisdictions. We will return to this dataset when the autumn numbers are in.

One of the most active places on the planet for corporate action in the gold sector right now is the small South American nation of Guyana.

In April, G Mining Ventures (TSX: GMIN) announced the C$3 billion acquisition of G2 Goldfields (TSX: GTWO).

The deal combines GMIN’s Oko West project, which is under construction, with G2’s neighbouring Oko-Ghanie project.

Oko West is expected to achieve first gold next year and produce 350,000 ounces of gold per annum, while G2’s Oko-Ghanie is projected to produce 228,000ozpa.

As a result, the combined Oko operation is expected to become one of the world’s largest gold producers.

The companies expect C$1 billion of synergies to be unlocked related to capital costs, operating costs, and throughput expansion due to shared infrastructure, mine sequencing, and permitting.

The deal has been praised as one of the most logical in the gold sector.

Funds flowing

In March, La Mancha Resource Capital paid US$313 million to increase its stake in GMIN from 16.7% to 19.9%.

It is also invested in smaller explorer Greenheart Gold Inc (TSXV: GHRT), as part of its C$59.85 million private placement, which closed earlier this month.

La Mancha invested C$35.5 million to increase its stake in Greenheart from 4.6% to 19.9%.

GMIN also participated in order to maintain its 10.5% stake.

Greenheart was a spin-off of the 2024 merger between GMIN and Reunion Gold Corporation and is led by the former Reunion team which discovered Oko West.

The company has projects in Guyana and neighbouring Suriname.

In late April, Australian junior Altair Minerals (ASX: ALR) announced it had raised A$28.2 million via a placement to Endeavour Mining (LSE/TSV: EDV) at a premium to the previous closing price, giving Endeavour 9.9% of the company.

The investment came before Altair had even reported a drill hole, with its maiden 50,000m drilling campaign kicking off just two weeks earlier.

Altair entered Guyana last year via the acquisition of the Greater Oko project, the largest exploration project in the country’s history.

The project is along strike from Oko West and Oko-Ghanie.

Also in April, Fortuna Mining Corp (TSX: FVI) entered into an earn-in agreement with private Guyanese company Qstone Inc, which gives Fortuna the right to earn up to a 70% interest in the Quartzstone project, 35km northwest of Oko West.

“We are excited to establish a presence in the Guyana Shield, a highly prospective region with a strong history of gold discoveries,” Fortuna president and CEO Jorge A Ganoza said.

Over the border in Suriname, Gold Fields (JSE: GFI) last month paid C$10.1 million to increase its stake in Founders Metals Inc (TSXV: FDR) from 10.4% to 12.5%.

Gold Fields invested an initial C$50 million in Founders in November 2025, while B2Gold (TSX: BTO) also owns 5%.

Founders owns the pre-resource Antino project.

“This looks like a really high-quality property,” Gold Fields CEO Mike Fraser said in an interview in February.

Earlier this month, Australian fund Paragon highlighted Tajiri Resources (TSXV: TAJ) as a takeover target, given Tajiri’s Yono project sits between GMIN and G2’s projects.

“Importantly, Tajiri’s Yono tenement sterilises up to 2Moz from open pit mining of GMIN’s northern shoot on Block 1,” Paragon said.

“In our view, Yono is clearly strategic and likely a ‘must-own’ asset for GMIN in the near term.

“Applying an EV/Resource valuation metric of C$434/oz (half the multiple paid by GMIN for G2) to a 1Moz resource scenario—representing either half of GMIN’s sterilised northern shoot or a 1Moz standalone Yono prospective resource – implies a Tajiri valuation of C$1.08/share for its 65% interest in Yono.”

The GMIN-G2 deal will also create a new spin-off, G3 SpinCo, which will be owned by G2 shareholders and will own G2’s interests in the Tiger Creek property, the Peters Mine property and Property B in Guyana.

Advanced players

Mid-tier South American producer Aris Mining (TSX/NYSE: ARIS) owns the Toroparu project in western Guyana.

An October 2025 preliminary economic assessment on the 6.5Moz project confirmed the viability of a 7 million tonne per annum operation to produce 235,000ozpa of gold at all-in sustaining costs of US$1289 an ounce.

The study returned a post-tax net present value (5% discount rate) of US$1.8 billion, internal rate of return of 25.2% and three-year payback at a US$3000/oz gold price.

A prefeasibility study is on track to be released in the second half of this year, with the company aiming to make a development decision early next year.

Omai Gold Mines (TSXV: OMG) is close to completing a PEA on its 8Moz Omai gold project in Guyana.

The brownfields site produced 3.8Moz between 1993 and 2005 and closed due to low gold prices.

Omai shares are up nearly 500% over the past year. Silvercorp Metals Inc (TSX: SVM) owns 5% of the company.

The 20^th edition of the In Gold We Trust report was released on Wednesday by its authors, Incrementum AG fund managers Ronald-Peter Stöferle and Mark J Valek.

Following on from ‘The Big Long’ last year, this year’s 460-page report is entitled ‘Back to the Monetary Future’.

“We announced the so-called ‘Golden Decade’ in 2020 and it’s clearly playing out in real time – monetarily, fiscally, but also macroeconomically,” Stöferle said during a press conference on Wednesday.

“The leitmotif ‘Back to the Monetary Future’ means that we’re seeing a world in upheaval in which gold regains monetary relevance, so from our point of view, it’s not just a normal gold cycle, it is really a monetary cycle that we’re in.”

Valek stressed that they did not believe there would be a return to a classic gold standard.

“This is not what we have in mind, but what we are witnessing already, and we are actually of the opinion that these developments will keep increasing, is basically gold regaining monetary relevance,” he said.

The report identified six key vectors of gold remonetisation: reserve function and sovereignty; private and institutional demand; accounting and recapitalisation; gold-backed bonds as an anchor of credibility digitalisation and tokenisation; accumulation by Western central banks; and digitalisation.

On the last point, Valek noted that tokenisation had not yet become widespread.

“Tether Gold by now is holding 16 tonnes of gold, which is tokenised in gold tokens, but more importantly, in terms of value, is 125 tonnes, which they are holding as backing for their USDT stable coin,” he said.

“So, Tether is the market leader when it comes to US dollar stable coins, with a market capitalisation of almost US$200 billion and interestingly enough, roughly four percentage points of these assets are backed by gold.

“125 tonnes alone would bring Tether into the realm of one of the biggest holders of gold when it comes to countries, so it would be on rank 34-35 between Sweden and South Africa, so a very respectable and relevant player in the gold market.”

The 2024 IGWT report introduced an alternative to the traditional 60:40 portfolio, comprising 45% stocks, 15% bonds, 15% safe haven or physical gold, 10% performance gold (gold and silver equities), 10% commodities and 5% bitcoin.

“Interestingly, we’re not alone anymore with this kind of idea,” Valek said.

“Last year, Morgan Stanley came out with a 60:20:20 portfolio, which is, I think, for an US investment bank, which typically is quite sceptical towards gold, quite an important step.

“This just goes to show that I think this development is only the beginning, and it’s also very, very important to note that obviously bonds are the biggest asset class of all of them, so if this kind of rotation really gets some traction, this obviously is a big part of the case for gold.”

Gold bull market to continue

Stöferle reflected on the first IGWT report, released in 2007.

Back then, the gold price was sitting at around US$670 an ounce. January 2026’s record highs of around US$5595/oz represent a more than eightfold increase.

Stöferle said the authors’ main thesis was that gold was not a contrarian asset.

“Gold is in a secular bull market, but we’re not in a bubble yet,” he said.

“I would say in football terms, we’re somewhere like in the second half of this game – perhaps we can go to overtime, perhaps we can go to penalty shooting.

“Based on a number of factors and historical comparisons, I think it’s pretty obvious that this bull market could still have legs now.”

Stöferle pointed to current gold allocations by private investors of just 2.7% last year, compared to the all-time high of 8.3% in 1980.

“If we compare the allocation of central banks, which is now 26% compared to 1980 – back then we were at 62%, just based on those two numbers, I think it’s pretty obvious, yes, we’re in an uptrend, we’re in a bull market, but we’re definitely far away from those extreme levels like we saw at the beginning of 1980.”

In 2020, the report forecast a gold price of US$4800/oz by the end of this decade, and US$8900/oz in inflationary conditions.

“We were kind of ridiculed – nobody really believed what we said, but actually we already overachieved the base case scenario, and we’re right on track for the long-term target in the inflationary scenario,” Stöferle said.

“US$8900 still sounds somewhat outlandish to many people these days, but that’s a CAGR of only 14% from now until the end of 2030 which is, from our point, quite realistic now.”

Gold is currently trading at a more than 30-day low of just over US$4500/oz.

“Gold is not a one-way street,” Stöferle said.

“I think it’s quite normal that we’re now taking a breather, and based on the sentiment, you can see that there’s quite a lot of bullishness that actually left the gold sector over the last couple of weeks, so, from our point of view, it is normal and it’s a healthy consolidation that we’re seeing.”

Equities healthy

Stöferle has been analysing mining stocks for 20 years and said the gold sector had never been in a better position.

“The EBITDA margin, for example, 56%, the net margin almost 30%, free cashflow margin at 25%,” he said.

Earnings per share was US$1.05 in the first quarter of 2023 and had risen to US$4.63 in the March 2026 quarter.

“Which means we’ve seen a decent performance in the mining space, but actually fundamental results massively outperformed the share price performance, so actually, the price earnings ratio came down over all those years,” Stöferle said.

The report sees mining equities as being undervalued.

“We’ve seen that the balance sheets of the mining industry got significantly more healthy – they’re debt-free, they’re purchasing their own stock, they’re increasing their dividends,” Stöferle said.

There has already been an uptick in gold sector consolidation.

“But I think this M&A wave will definitely pick up momentum,” Stöferle said.

“We’ve recently saw Equinox with the merger with Orla, we saw SilverCrest being taken out by Coeur, we saw Agnico Eagle consolidated their properties in Finland, taking over Rupert and also Aurion.

“But from our point of view, this is only the beginning.

“We haven’t seen this crazy M&A mania that we usually see at the end of a big bull market, and again, those mining companies are producing a tremendous amount of free cashflow at the moment.”

Equinox Gold Corp (TSX: EQX) and Orla Mining (TSX: OLA) have entered into an agreement for an at-market combination to create a new North American senior gold producer.

The combined entity, which will carry the Equinox name, is expected to have a market capitalisation of US$18.5 billion and annual production of 1.1 million ounces of gold from six mines in Canada, the US, Mexico and Nicaragua, with an organic pathway to 1.9Mozpa.

The larger Equinox expects to be the second-largest producer of Canadian gold behind Agnico Eagle Mines (TSX: AEM) from the Greenstone, Valentine and Musselwhite mines.

The two will combine via a plan of arrangement with Orla shareholders to receive one Equinox share and US0.01c for each share held, giving them 33% of the enlarged company.

The merged company expects to generate free cashflow of around US$1.4 billion this year, based on analyst consensus estimates and is expected to have US$1.4 billion in liquidity.

Equinox CEO Darren Hall will retain his role, with Orla CEO Jason Simpson to join the company as president.

Orla chair Chuck Jeannes will join Equinox as chair with continued support from current Equinox chair Ross Beaty as chair emeritus.

‘Icing on the cake’

Beaty described today as a momentous day for Equinox.

“Just over eight years ago, we began our journey to build Equinox Gold,” he said on a conference call on Wednesday.

“From the beginning, we had one big goal – to build a great new gold company at scale.

“Why have we focused on scale? Because it creates better resilience and diversification against risk, better valuation multiples, better liquidity, a stronger financial condition, and, most importantly, greater leverage to gold.”

The deal with Orla marks Equinox’s fourth deal since 2018 and follows on from last year’s combination with Calibre Mining Corp.

“We built mines. We’ve sold mines that were non-core, and we’ve spun out three companies, each with over US$1 billion in market value today,” Beaty said.

“The Orla deal will add icing on the Equinox cake.”

Both companies were asked about the timing of the deal.

“If we consider both companies, we’ve both got credible operations, we’ve both got a clear platform to grow, we believe we’re both equally undervalued in the space,” Hall said.

“Both sets of shareholders will benefit from the continued re-rate that will come from demonstrated delivery of both asset bases, the growth that comes from it, and then the additional re-rate that comes as a consequence of size.”

Simpson said the deal accelerated both companies’ existing growth stories.

“Often we were complimented on our platform, but in the same conversation, the patience of waiting for that platform to unfold was a question that I would get, and so this satisfies an accelerated growth platform that I think will be to the benefit of both of our groups of shareholders,” he said.

Growth projects include the Valentine phase 2 expansion in Canada, South Railroad and Castle Mountain in the US, and Los Filos and Camino Rojo underground in Mexico.

Both companies’ shareholders will vote on the deal in July.

Directors and management of Orla, Pierre Lassonde, and certain affiliates of Fairfax Financial Holdings, who collectively hold approximately 20% of Orla, have entered into voting support agreements.

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter.

Gold M&A ramping up

The Equinox-Orla combination continues a run of major gold sector consolidation.

Last week, Western Australian producers Regis Resources (ASX: RRL) and Vault Minerals (ASX: VAU) announced a nil-premium merger to create a A$10.7 billion, 700,000ozpa producer.

Two weeks earlier, Agnico Eagle Mines (TSX: AEM) announced three transactions worth nearly US$2.8 billion which will consolidate its position in Finland’s Central Lapland Greenstone Belt.

The company is acquiring Rupert Resources (TSX: RUP) for C$2.9 billion and Aurion Resources (TSXV: AU) for C$481 million, as well as B2Gold’s (TSX: BTO) 70% interest in the Fingold JV for US$325 million in cash.

Earlier in April, G Mining Ventures Corp (TSX: GMIN) announced the C$3 billion acquisition of G2 Goldfields Inc (TSX: GTWO), combining the Oko West and Oko-Ghanie gold projects in Guyana.

According to Canaccord Genuity, there had been US$13.7 billion in gold deals announced up until April 21, when Agnico’s Finnish transactions were announced.

That was more than double the pace of last year, when a record US$28.4 billion in precious metals deals were announced for the year.

“We expect to see more consolidation in the sector in 2026, with companies flush with cash and cashflow,” analyst Carey MacRury said.

Barrick Mining Corporation (NYSE: B) CEO Mark Hill says the company will look to focus on lower-risk jurisdictions, echoing recent comments made by executive chairman John Thornton.

In a March 27 letter to shareholders, Thornton said “we will reduce our exposure to today’s higher-risk jurisdictions, enhance the value of our remaining assets through disciplined investment and strategic initiatives, and strengthen the whole with targeted acquisitions”.

Speaking after the release of Barrick’s Q1 results on Monday, Hill said the company would try to focus its growth on more stable regions.

“Where we have more certainty around the mining regime and the ability to operate without a lot of interference,” he said.

“So, without going through the actual list of the countries, obviously you can see with what’s happened in Africa recently, which countries would obviously not be ideal for investment.”

Hill suggested Barrick would look to divest its stake in the Porgera mine in Papua New Guinea, a joint venture with Zijin Gold International Company (HK: 2259) and the PNG government.

“We have a minority stake in it at 24% and we obviously spend a considerable amount of management time on it, so something like that would be considered non-core at this stage,” he said.

“From where we are now, that would be where I end it.”

The troubled Reko Diq project in Pakistan remains under review and Thorton was in Islamabad on Sunday meeting with government officials.

Hill said the company was spending US$20 million a month on Reko Diq.

“Right now, we’re having issues with the contractors on site, and we’ve had several force majeure notices, so the first thing is we have to understand the contracting strategy and how we’re going to make this successful,” he said.

“Obviously, the other thing is, I just want to re-run the capital and see where we are with that, and if there’s been any large shifts in the capital, and once we get the answer to all that, I can make an informed decision.

“I know I’ve been criticised for being overly cautious, but I think on a project like this, it’s important for all the shareholders, including the ones in Pakistan, that we actually understand where we are so we can be successful going forward.”

Priorities progressing

Hill said the four priorities Barrick set out at the start of this year were advancing.

“The first is obviously safety. Our safety performance has not been where it needs to be, and we’re taking action to improve it,” he said.

Hill said Barrick had historically focused on total reportable injuries.

“The company led the industry on that one metric, yet it did not adequately address the risks that can lead to serious injuries and fatalities,” he said.

“In Q4 of last year, we shifted our focus to identifying and eliminating the risks behind serious and fatal events.

“In Q1 we saw this change begin to work. There was a meaningful reduction in significant and higher severity injuries and 63% of all injuries during the quarter were classified as minor reported lost time. Injuries also declined.”

Barrick’s other three priorities are operational delivery, growth and the IPO of its North American assets.

On the IPO, Barrick said it remained on track to be complete by the end of the year.

The company remains in “constructive dialogue” with JV partner Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM) over the performance of Nevada Gold Mines.

Hill said the improvements at NGM had come quicker than he was expecting.

He added the relationship with Newmont had “completely changed” and he was onsite at NGM with Newmont CEO Natascha Viljoen last week.

“We are on track to execute successfully against all these four priorities by year-end,” Hill said.

“Barrick, historically, has been criticised for not delivering on its commitments, so I just want to highlight that this is the second quarter that we have delivered on all of our commitments to our shareholders.”

Production beat

Gold production for the first three months of 2026 was 719,000 ounces of gold, ahead of guidance of 640,000-680,000oz, driven by strong performances at NGM and Veladero, and the ramp-up at Loulo-Gounkoto.

Gold production in the current quarter is expected to rise to 730,000-770,000oz.

Copper production of 49,000 tonnes was in line with plan.

All-in sustaining costs were US$1708 an ounce of gold, better than plan.

Hill said every US$10 per barrel move in the price of diesel would impact AISC by US$12/oz.

Operating cashflow doubled year-on-year to US$2.55 billion, attributable operating cashflow was up 89% to US$1.97 billion, and attributable free cashflow was up 195% to US$1.21 billion.

Net earnings jumped 238% to US$1.6 billion, or US96c per share, while adjusted net earnings were up 173% to US$1.65 billion, or US98c per share.

The company declared a US17.5c per share dividend.

Barrick also announced a US$3 billion share buy-back program.

“Since 2021, Barrick has returned US$7.9 billion to shareholders, including US$697 million in Q1 2026, and US$2.4 billion in 2025,” Barrick chief financial officer Helen Cai said.

“Our capital allocation framework is disciplined, flexible and designed to work throughout the cycle.

“It supports reinvestment in the business, advances growth, protects the balance sheet and creates a clear pathway for returning excess cash to shareholders.”

Regis Resources (ASX: RRL) and Vault Minerals (ASX: VAU) have agreed to a merger of equals to create a A$10.7 billion Western Australia-focused gold producer.

Regis is a 365,000 ounce per annum producer via its Duketon operations and 30% stake in AngloGold Ashanti’s (NYSE: AU) Tropicana gold mine.

Vault is a 346,000ozpa producer from its Leonora, Mount Monger and Deflector operations.

As well as the WA assets, Regis holds the McPhillamys gold development in New South Wales, which has been stalled by permitting issues, while Vault owns the Sugar Zone project in Ontario, Canada.

The combined company will have 6 million ounces of reserves and 20.5Moz of resources and own 22.3 million tonnes per annum of milling capacity across nine plants, increasing to around 24.3Mtpa following the completion of the mill expansion at King of the Hills by the end of this year.

The merged company will become the third-largest primary ASX-listed gold producer behind Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST) and Evolution Mining (ASX: EVN).

Regis will acquire Vault via a scheme of arrangement with Vault shareholders to receive 0.6947 of a new Regis share for each Vault share held.

Regis shareholders will own roughly 51% of the company with Vault shareholders owning the remainder.

“The combined business becomes a globally relevant gold company of greater scale, with a high-quality portfolio of assets, exceptional cash generation capacity and the financial strength to create long-term value for shareholders,” Regis managing director Jim Beyer said on a conference call.

“There’s much more to it than just increasing in size. Our expanded portfolio of five producing assets plus two near-term growth options gives us genuine diversification and flexibility.

“It’s the type of portfolio, in terms of the number and type of assets, which we’ve been looking at for some time now.”

‘Significant’ cash generation

The enlarged company will be debt-free with A$1.9 billion in pro forma cash and bullion and available debt facilities of A$300 million.

Vault recently reached a cashflow inflection point with the close-out of its hedge book.

Regis and Vault forecast combined annualised free cashflow of A$1.7 billion.

“This level of cash generation is significantly higher than most of our peers and will enable the funding of growth initiatives, without the reliance on external capital, while also maintaining an attractive capital return policy for our shareholders,” Beyer said.

The merger is expected to realise over A$500 million of corporate tax benefits and lower the cost of capital for the combined company.

The companies see the scope to unlock cost efficiencies, via procurement savings and the reduction of corporate costs.

Beyer said the company would also look at applying Vault’s owner-operator model to the Regis assets.

Beyer added that good people were the core of a company.

“With the difficulty and challenges in the market now with the availability of good quality people, it would be crazy to think that there would be any sense in doing anything that would mean we’ve lost that skill and that capability,” he said.

“That’s one of the great strengths of this. We’re putting together two teams and creating, I think, what’ll be a bit of a powerhouse of technical and operating skills that I’m not sure will exist [elsewhere].”

Beyer will lead the enlarged company with Regis’ Anthony Rechichi and Michael Holmes to continue as chief financial officer and chief operating officer, respectively.

Vault managing director Luke Tonkin had previously announced his retirement.

Vault chair Russell Clark will become chair, with long-time Regis chair James Mactier to retire.

The combined company’s board will be comprised of four directors from each of the current Regis and Vault boards.

The deal will require approval from Vault shareholders and is expected to close by August or September.

Shares in small-cap developer Q-Gold Resources (TSXV: QGR) have doubled in the past month after the company revealed the economics for its Quartz Mountain gold project in Oregon.

The preliminary economic assessment for the project was released on April 8 and Q-Gold vice president corporate development Scott Moore said attendance at the Mining Forum Europe in Zürich the following week really marked the launch of the company.

Q-Gold completed the acquisition of Quartz Mountain from Alamos Gold (TSX/NYSE: AGI) late last year for US$2.85 million in cash and 13.9 million shares, as well as future milestone payments.

Alamos owns 9% of the company and its vice president, exploration Scott Parsons sits on the Q-Gold board.

Alamos had acquired the project in 2012 but had not done any work on it since 2016.

Once an asset under development by Robert Friedland, Quartz Mountain has been around for at least 45 years, but Q-Gold’s PEA marked the first study ever completed.

“No one’s ever done one before, and the numbers are fantastic,” Moore said in an interview.

Initial capital costs for a 14-year operation were forecast at US$290 million, including US$48 million in contingency.

Average production was forecast at 135,000 ounces per annum at all-in sustaining costs of US$1216 an ounce, with peak annual production of 166,300oz.

At a conservative gold price of US$3265/oz, the project has a post-tax net present value (5% discount rate) of US$1.71 billion, an internal rate of return of 55.2% and a payback period of 1.8 years.

At a gold price of US$4820/oz, the NPV increases to US$3.2 billion and the IRR increases to 92%.

“A very robust project on any metric,” Moore said.

The study was based on the project’s indicated resource of 2.01 million ounces of gold at 0.78 grams per tonne gold and inferred resource of 494,000oz at 0.8g/t gold.

The PEA contemplated a phased development with an initial open pit, heap leach operation, followed by the transition to a crushing and milling circuit, followed by flotation to produce a gold concentrate from around year five.

“The strip ratio is 0.6 to one, so one of the lowest in the world,” Moore said.

“We get about 80% recoveries back in the heap leach, so a good, robust project on that basis, and then 80%-plus in the sulphides, and we’ll do some more met test work to see if we can improve the sulphide recoveries.”

Q-Gold recently got approval from the United States Forest Service for an exploration program at the larger Angel’s Camp property, which adjoins Quartz Mountain to the east.

High-grade gold veins have previously been discovered at the 2660 acre property and Q-Gold will kick off a soil sampling program next month to define drill targets.

The company is planning more drilling this year at Quartz Mountain to increase the confidence of the resource and will plans to start a feasibility study around September.

Permitting improving

“You have to have an engineering study to kick off the permitting, so we are now full blown into the permitting process, both on the state and the federal level,” Moore said.

While permitting in Oregon has typically been slow, Q-Gold has been encouraged by the recent progress of Paramount Gold Nevada’s (NYSE American: PZG) Grassy Mountain project in the state.

Grassy Mountain was accepted into the US government’s FAST-41 program.

“They entered that last spring, and nine months later, they got the permits,” Moore said.

Quartz Mountain is east of the Cascade Mountains, an area in which the Oregon government is keen to stimulate economic activity.

“You’ve got a bit of a confluence of state and federal coming through to accelerate permits for important projects,” Moore said.

Q-Gold is planning to apply for the FAST-41 program and is hopeful of receiving permits within 24 months.

In the meantime, the company will be busy marketing.

The stock has risen from C14c before the PEA release to as high as C35c and remains at C28c.

With a market capitalisation of C$46 million, Moore believes Q-Gold is still undervalued, particularly when compared to companies with similar-sized projects in the US.

The stock has strong backing with institutional investors accounting for 52%, including Libra Investments (13%), Franklin Gold Fund (9%), ASA Gold Fund (9%) and Brasil Warrant (6%).

Agnico Eagle Mines (TSX/NYSE: AEM) has reported record operating margins and adjusted net income for the first quarter.

Agnico Eagle reported quarterly net income of US$1.7 billion, or US$3.39 per share, and record adjusted net income of US$1.70 billion, or US$3.41 per share.

The company generated cash provided by operating activities of US$1.34 billion, or $2.69 per share, and free cashflow of US$732 million, or US$1.46 per share, which included the impact of a US$1.3 billion payment for the remaining cash tax liability related to the 2025 taxation year.

Agnico reported first quarter payable gold production of 825,109 ounces, slightly above plan, at cash costs of US$1158 an ounce and all-in sustaining costs of US$1483/oz.

“We’re off to a good start to the year with solid operating performance, delivering record operational and financial results, record mill throughput at Macassa, record development rate at Meliadine, record pit tonnage at Detour,” Agnico Eagle CEO Ammar Al-Joundi said on a conference call.

“We’re delivering these solid operating results while doing an excellent job controlling costs, leveraging off our relentless focus on cost control while benefiting from certain structural cost advantages that derive from our business model.”

Agnico maintained 2026 guidance at 3.3-3.5 million ounces of gold, 52% weighted to the second half.

Guidance for cash costs and AISC remained unchanged at US$1020-1120/oz and US$1400-1550/oz, respectively.

“This is no small task, given the uncertainties and pressures in the market over the past several weeks,” Al-Joundi said.

The company said its focus on local procurement and resilient supply chains should insulate it from disruption to fuel and consumables supply.

Its cost guidance is based on an assumed diesel benchmark price of US78c per litre (excluding transportation and taxes), though 54% of its 2026 diesel exposure is hedged at US71c/L.

Diesel represents around 10% of Agnico’s operating costs and the company estimates a 10% change in diesel prices would impact total cash costs by roughly US$4/oz on a net basis after hedges, or around US$8/oz excluding the impact of diesel hedges.

Agnico Eagle’s cash balance increased by US$246 million to US$3.1 billion, resulting in a March 31 net cash position of US$2.9 billion.

“We distributed US$375 million to shareholders. We invested almost US$400 million into our high-quality growth projects, all while increasing our cash position by almost US$250 million,” Al-Joundi said.

“At these gold prices, we will increase our share repurchases, and we are increasing our normal course issuer bid to US$2 billion.”

Two weeks ago, Agnico Eagle announced the acquisitions of Rupert Resources (TSX: RUP) and Aurion Resources (TSXV: AU) and the acquisition of B2Gold’s (TSX: BTO) 70% interest in Fingold Ventures to consolidate its landholding in Finland.

The company plans to evaluate opportunities to reduce dilution associated with the Rupert transaction, including potentially returning the proceeds of portfolio investment sales to shareholders through share repurchases.

Unrivalled growth

“Perhaps the most important takeaway – we continue to aggressively reinvest in our business, into the best pipeline in the industry, into projects that deliver exceptional returns at relatively lower risk,” Al-Joundi said.

It’s part of a plan to increase gold output by 20-30% over the next decade, which includes increasing production at Detour and Canadian Malartic, already Canada’s largest gold mines, to 1Moz each per year.

Agnico Eagle will also make a final investment decision on the Hope Bay project in Nunavut this month, with the mine expected to contribute 400,000oz per annum by 2030.

“In addition, with the expected consolidation of our Finnish platform, we now see a path to further growth that comes from building a 500,000 ounce a year, multi-decade platform in what we believe to be the most prospective land package in Northern Europe,” Al-Joundi said.

“We will focus on the best mining jurisdictions based on geologic potential and political stability.

“We’ll be disciplined with our owners’ money, making investment decisions based on technical and regional knowledge, creating value through the drill bit and through smart acquisitions, where and when it makes sense.”

The company was again asked about its future in Australia and Mexico.

Al-Joundi said he visited the company’s Fosterville operation in Victoria, Australia about a month ago.

“We spent a lot of time on some recent, I would say, very good exploration results in and around Fosterville,” he said.

“That part of Australia was the original gold rush, and nobody’s really focused on it for decades, and it’s still very early, but I was quite pleasantly surprised with some of the results they were getting and the enthusiasm they had.

“We get questions all the time about the rest of Australia. We think Australia is a great place to mine, not just for gold, but you know us – we are very careful about what we do.

“We’re very disciplined, and right now we continue to be focused in Australia, at Fosterville, and the team we have there and the opportunities around that.”

On Mexico, Al-Joundi said he wouldn’t rule out consolidating the San Nicolás copper project if its 50% partner, Teck Resources (TSX: TECK), wanted to sell.

“We are looking at opportunities to expand San Nicolás but, beyond that, there’s really nothing substantial that we’re seeing as an opportunity in Mexico,” he said.

Deutsche Bank Research Institute says the world has returned to a battle of the superpowers, which has major implications for the US dollar and gold.

“In 1989, Francis Fukuyama argued that humanity had reached ‘the end of history’,” DB strategist Mallika Sachdeva and research analyst Michael Hsueh wrote in a report released this week.

“In the years that followed, the US became the uncontested hegemon, global trade exploded in a US-defined liberal order, developed market central banks sold gold, while emerging markets accumulated vast amounts of US dollar FX reserves.”

The report argues that the ‘end of history’ has come to an end.

“The world is back in a superpower struggle; the US is retreating from free trade, alliances, and security provision; the Great Economic Moderation is behind us; and the dollar banking system has been weaponised,” it said.

“The ‘return of history’ has big implications for gold and the dollar. “

Central bank reserves

DB’s report argues that the share of gold in central bank reserves is not driven by the global monetary system, but rather, by the global geopolitical environment.

“Gold’s decline as a share of reserves did not happen with the fall of Bretton Woods in the 1970s, but the fall of the Berlin Wall and the assertion of US hegemony in the 1990s,” DB said.

“As tectonic geopolitical plates shift again, the share of US dollars in central bank reserves is once more in decline.”

The share of US dollars in global central bank reserves has dropped sharply from its peak of around 60% at the turn of the century to 40% today,

“Importantly, the dollar’s losses as a share of central bank reserves have not gone to other fiat currencies, but to gold,” Sachdeva and Hsueh said.

At the same time, gold’s share in global central bank reserves has doubled in the past four years alone to nearly 30%.

“The fact that the gap between the dollar and gold as a share of reserves is now just 10% is extremely notable,” analysts noted.

Until the 1990s, gold had made up a larger share of central bank reserves than the dollar.

Sachdeva and Hsueh said it was too easy to write off gold’s rising share of reserves as a result of price increases.

“Indeed, around 80% of the rise in gold’s share has been on account of prices,” they said.

“But there is a genuine volume driver underlying this: central bank purchases have arguably themselves been behind significant price momentum.

“There is indeed a close relationship between official purchases and sales of gold and the change in the real gold price. Volume and prices are thus endogenously related and are both doing the legwork of gold’s rising share.”

It’s all about emerging markets

DB said the changing dynamics were largely being driven by emerging markets (EM).

“EM central banks have been actively buying gold and driving upward pressure on prices; crucially, their FX reserves may also now begin to structurally decline,” the report said.

“A ‘return of history’ would be consistent with gold getting to at least a 40% share of global reserves.”

As of the end of 2025, EM central banks held 16% of reserves in gold, with China holding just 9% of its reserves in gold.

DB argued there was significant scope for EM to grow their share.

“We find that EM countries with closer non-Western defence ties hold more gold,” it said.

“If the world diversifies trade and security dependence away from the US, this would be consistent with less USD and more gold in reserves.”

EM central banks have purchased more than 225 million ounces of gold over the past 17 years, which is more than advanced economy central banks sold in the 1990s.

EM central banks still only hold half the amount of physical gold of developed markets (DM), with 367Moz at the end of 2025, versus 712Moz held by advanced economies.

“The ratio of EM/DM central bank gold holding is at around 52%, having risen from just 20% before the 2008 GFC,” DB said.

DM central banks held 34% of reserves in gold as of the end of last year,

“There thus remains a significant gap to close, if not ultimately exceed,” DB said.

The latest World Gold Council figures, released on Wednesday, support DB’s thesis.

Central banks purchased an estimated 244 tonnes of gold in the first quarter, with demand exceeding the previous quarter and the five-year average.

The National Bank of Poland was once again the largest purchaser, increasing its gold reserves by 31t over the quarter to 582t, tracking closer to its 700t target.

The Central Bank of Uzbekistan added 25t to its gold reserves during the quarter, taking its gold holdings to 416t, or 87% of the bank’s total reserves.

The People’s Bank of China increased its gold reserves by 7t in Q1, more than doubling its net purchase in the previous quarter, while other buyers included the National Bank of Kazakhstan (12t), Czech National Bank (5t), Bank Negara Malaysia (5t), Bank of Guatemala (2t), National Bank of Cambodia (2t), Bank Indonesia (2t), National Bank of Serbia (1t) and the Central Bank of the UAE (1t).

What does this mean for gold prices?

DB simulated a range of different outcomes for gold prices depending on the level of FX reserves EM central banks end up with, and the share of gold in reserves they target.

It considered a steady state for EM FX reserves of US$8 trillion, as well as a drastic decline to US$2.5 trillion, a more modest decline to US$5 trillion and an increase to US$10 trillion, while for the share of gold in reserves, it looked at a range of different shares rising from 15% to 40%.

It noted that every 1Moz of gold purchases or sales drove a 1% increase or decrease, respectively, in gold prices.

Stable EM FX reserves and a 20% share of gold in reserves, close to today’s levels, results in a gold price of US$5300 an ounce.

Stable EM FX reserves and a 40% share of gold in reserves equated to a gold price of US$11,600/oz, while rises in EM FX reserves and a 40% share of gold in reserves resulted in a gold price of US$14,000/oz.

“As intuition would suggest, if EM central banks are targeting a rising share of gold in a steady or growing FX reserves environment, this would be the most bullish outcome for gold,” Sachdeva and Hsueh said.

“But even in an environment where EM FX reserves decline to US$5 trillion, if central banks target an increase of gold’s share to 40%, this could still be consistent with gold prices rising to near US$8000 over the next five years.”

The silver market was in deficit in 2025 for the fifth consecutive year, a situation that is not projected to reverse any time soon.

The World Silver Survey, which was prepared for the Silver Institute by Metals Focus, was released earlier this month.

Total silver demand fell by 2% in 2025 to 1.13 billion ounces with a 14% jump in coin and bar demand almost offsetting a 3% slide in industrial demand, an 8% drop in jewellery fabrication and a 21% slump in silverware demand.

Total supply last year was 1.09Boz, with global silver mine production rising by 3% to 846.6 million ounces.

The gains came from higher by-product output from copper operations in Peru, the ramp-up of Polymetal JSC’s Prognoz mine in Russia and smaller gains were from Chinese and Moroccan operations, which were partly offset by lower output from operations in Mexico and a decline in Indonesia.

North American output fell by 3% to a 10-year low, while Central and South American production rose by 5%.

Recycling rose by 2% to a 12-year high of 197.6Moz.

Silver demand in 2026 is forecast to fall by 2% to 1.11Moz, with a further rise in coin and bar demand to be offset by falls in jewellery, silverware and industrial demand.

Mine production is expected to remain flat this year.

As a result, the structural market deficit is projected to widen to 46.3Moz in 2026, which translates into a cumulative stock drawdown of 765Moz since 2021.

“This, along with renewed ETP demand and ongoing US tariff uncertainty, leaves the market vulnerable to another liquidity squeeze,” Metals Focus said.

“In turn, this suggests that heightened volatility and further price gains appear likely in 2026.”

While the Iran War complicated the short-term outlook, the report concluded that the broader macroeconomic and geopolitical backdrop remained supportive for silver prices

Producers bullish

Silver prices reached record highs of more than US$120 an ounce in January but are sitting at around US$75/oz today.

While prices have been volatile, silver producers attending this month’s Mining Forum Europe in Zürich were optimistic about the demand outlook.

“Silver is a very complex story, much more complex than gold, because silver has two uses,” Pan American Silver Corp (NYSE: PAAS) president and CEO Michael Steinmann told the event.

“The use right now on the industrial side is growing so fast that we are already at about 65% of the world’s silver production that is used up, and you can imagine with further electrification – not only with clean energy production – but self-driving cars, data centres, AI, the use of silver is increasing very, very fast.”

The silver market is expected to remain in deficit until at least 2030.

“We know there’s no significant silver coming online, and that deficit is going to prevail for quite some time,” First Majestic Silver Corp (NYSE/TSX: AG) president and chief corporate development officer Mani Alkhafaji said during the forum.

“There are new industries that are coming in the market that’s not being talked about.

“We just came from a recent conference and there’s discussion about the AI data centres. On average, a data centre consumes 6.6 tonnes of silver and that’s a significant number that’s not being replaced by any new supply hitting the market.”

New supply

Steinmann pointed to the difficulty in bringing on new silver supply.

“75% of the production comes as a byproduct from copper production, and copper is already at an all-time high, nearly, and there’s not many big copper mines coming on in the next few years, so hence not much more silver production,” he said.

Steinmann said Pan American’s La Colorada Skarn project in Mexico and the potential restart of the Escobal mine in Guatemala was the only meaningful future additions to production.

A March revised preliminary economic assessment for the La Colorada skarn expansion returned capital costs of US$1.9 billion for a 37-year operation producing 15.8Moz of silver and 239,000t of zinc per year in the first five years, in addition to the 3.3Moz of silver and 6000t of zinc per year produced by the La Colorada vein mine.

Discovery Silver Corp (TSX: DSV) owns the world’s largest undeveloped silver deposit, Cordero in Mexico, which has been stalled by permitting delays.

Discovery senior vice president, investor relations Mark Utting said the company was encouraged by Silver Tiger Metals Inc (TSXV: SLVR) recently receiving a permit for its El Tigre silver development in Mexico.

“We know that the project was reviewed with the president in late January as one of several key projects for the country. We understand it was basically green-lighted at the executive level,” he said.

“It is our understanding, basically, we’re looking at a government administration exercise, so when we say that we are confident we’re going to be permitted very soon, that is the basis of that optimism.”

Discovery will then spend around six months updating the economics for the 14Moz per year project and could start construction by late 2026.

These days, 70% of Coeur Mining’s (NYSE: CDE) revenue comes from gold, but the company is advancing the Silvertip polymetallic project in British Columbia.

Coeur SVP and chief financial officer Tom Whelan said the company had just completed a PEA, which would be presented to the board in May ahead of a decision on whether to move to a prefeasibility study.

“I don’t want to get ahead of the board, but obviously with this higher silver price environment, all of the work that we’ve done, we’re starting to get pretty excited,” he said.

“Just to give you a sense of the order of magnitude of what that could look like, Silvertip’s an 11 million tonne resource at 300 grams silver. If you take 2000-3000t a day, that’s 6-8 million more ounces of silver.”

Also a gold-silver producer, Kingsgate Consolidated (ASX: KCN) is dusting off plans for its 61Moz Nueva Esperanza silver development in Chile.

“It is easily one of the largest underdeveloped silver projects in South America, I think, in fact, probably globally,” Kingsgate managing director Jamie Gibson said.

“I think if you look at the size of the resource, it’s probably in the world’s top 10.

“In fact, Kinross had this in the late ‘90s and it was the largest silver mine in the world. I think those guys got something like 35-40 million ounces out of it in about 13 months, so we know it’s got scale.”

Kingsgate has appointed new consultants and will update the 2016 PFS.

Hecla Mining (NYSE: HL) is already the largest silver producer in the US and Canada and will look at the restart of Midas in Nevada in the medium-term.

“The story is we’ve got a nearly fully permitted 1200 tons per day mill, tailings infrastructure, surface facilities, utilities in place, and our 2025 exploration program was pretty exciting. It identified a couple of new structures, new veins, both very high-grade,” Hecla CEO Rob Krcmarov said.

“The path from here is really aggressive exploration 2026. If that continues to pan out, resource definition and technical studies in the next year or two, then a go decision and production perhaps 3-4 years beyond that, so realistically, potentially an operating mine in, let’s call it the next five years or so.”

Other growth

Juniors presenting in Zürich also outlined silver growth plans.

Aya Gold & Silver (TSX: AYA) is growing silver production at Zgounder in Morocco from 5Moz last year to nearly 7Moz this year and is aiming to reach 43Moz of silver equivalent by 2029 via the development of its second mine, Boumadine.

Americas Gold & Silver Corp (TSX: USA) has flagged a 30% increase in silver production in Nevada this year from 2.65Moz to 3.2-3.6Moz.

Avino Silver & Gold Mines (NYSE American: ASM) president and CEO David Wolfin spoke of the company’s plans to go from one producing mine in Mexico to three operations by 2028, with production to rise from around 2.5Moz per year to 8-10Moz.

Kuya Silver Corp (CSE: KUYA) is planning to increase production from Bethania in Peru this year to 1.5Moz and double production by 2028.

Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM) announced another record quarter of free cashflow generation and doubled the size of its share repurchase program.

Gold production in the first quarter dropped 10% to 1.3 million ounces, while copper production was up 3% to 30,000 tonnes and silver production increased 29% to 9Moz.

Gold by-product all-in sustaining costs fell by 21% to US$1029 an ounce due to lower sustaining capital spend, G&A, and other expenses, while the average realised gold price for the quarter increased by US$684 to US$4900/oz.

Net income for the quarter was up US$2 billion to US$3.3 billion, while adjusted net income rose by US$400 million to US$3.2 billion.

The company generated US$3.8 billion of cash from operating activities, net of working capital impacts of US$202 million, and reported record free cashflow of US$3.1 billion, up 12%.

Newmont CEO Natascha Viljoen said the result was particularly notable given the seasonal working capital headwinds typically experienced in the first quarter of each year.

Australia challenges

Gold production in Q1 fell due to a bushfire at Boddington in Western Australia, heavy rainfall and a fatal accident at Tanami in the Northern Territory and heavy snowfall at Brucejack in British Columbia.

Newmont maintained 2026 production guidance of 5.3Moz of gold, 52% weighted to the second half.

Newmont expects to produce 23% of total 2026 attributable production in the second quarter of 2026, slightly below first quarter production.

On April 14, a magnitude 4.5Mla earthquake was recorded in New South Wales near Newmont’s Cadia operation.

There were no injuries but some damage to underground infrastructure and operations were briefly suspended.

Cadia is currently processing surface stockpiles and expects underground rehabilitation to be completed in the next five weeks, enabling a return to 80% operating capacity, with full operational capacity expected by the end of the current quarter.

Despite lower AISC in the first quarter, Newmont maintained full-year guidance of US$1650/oz.

Unit costs are expected to be notably higher than the first quarter due to higher sustaining capital spend, lower silver production, and higher costs at Boddington, Tanami, Lihir and Peñasquito.

The company warned unit costs could be impacted by higher oil prices, while increased royalties in Ghana were expected to result in a US$25/oz impact.

“Over the last few weeks, the world has experienced a notable increase in energy prices and impacts to global supply chain dynamics as a result of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East,” Viljoen said.

“We continue to monitor the geopolitical environment and its potential impact on cost closely but remain encouraged by our demonstrated ability to effectively manage costs and improve productivity, and are therefore maintaining our full-year cost guidance at this time.”

Returns boosted

Since the company’s last conference call in February, it returned US$2.7 billion to shareholders via dividends and share buy-backs.

It declared a first quarter dividend of US26c per share.

The Newmont board has authorised an additional US$6 billion of share repurchases.

Newmont ended the quarter with US$8.8 billion of cash and US$12.8 billion in total liquidity, with a net cash position of US$3.2 billion.

The company has a minimum cash balance target of US$5 billion and a net cash target of US$1 billion.

Sustaining capital guidance for 2026 is US$1.95 billion, while development capital spend is expected to be US$1.4 billion.

In light of Agnico Eagle Mines’ (TSX: AEM) deals announced earlier this week, Viljoen was asked about Newmont’s appetite for M&A.

“Just from a disciplined capital allocation point of view, our focus remains firmly, firstly, on continuing to drive our own operations, to be the best operators of these operations, and to get them to operate in the way that they should,” she said.

“Then we have a number of brownfields opportunities that we believe would be very value-accretive for us, and then, of course, by the time we get to greenfields projects and any what could-be acquisition opportunities, it will have to compete for capital within the broader portfolio.

“So, our focus at this stage reminds firmly internally on our operations.”

Nevada Gold Mines

In February, Newmont revealed it had sent a notice of default to its Nevada Gold Mines partner Barrick Mining Corporation (NYSE: B) under the NGM joint venture agreement.

It came after Barrick announced a proposed initial public offering of its North American assets.

Newmont has a 38.5% interest in Nevada Gold Mines (NGM) in the US and a 40% interest in Pueblo Viejo in the Dominican Republic, both operated by Barrick.

At the time, Newmont expressed concern about the operation and management of NGM due to “a degradation in performance and subsequent asset value over the past six years”.

Viljoen said discussions were ongoing, while Newmont was also collecting information on Barrick’s 100%-owned Fourmile discovery.

“We continue to engage constructively with our Nevada Gold Mines joint venture partner with a clear focus on improving the performance of our shared assets and delivering long-term value for Newmont shareholders,” Viljoen said.

“Our focus remains, firstly, on improving the Nevada Gold Mines joint venture performance, and then we are continuously working with our joint venture partner to gain more information around Fourmile and the work that we need to do there.”

Newmont interim chief financial officer Peter Wexler said the notice of default was open-ended.

“There’s no set timeline for bringing it to resolution, but we hope to do so in the near term and make sure that Nevada Gold Mines is operating at the highest level possible,” he said.

Hycroft Mining Holding Corporation (Nasdaq: HYMC) president and CEO Diane Garrett believes recent high-grade discoveries made by the company has the potential to transform the future of its namesake project in Nevada.

The large, low-grade Hycroft project was discovered in the 1980s and has a chequered history of on-and-off heap leach production over the past 40 years.

Acquired out of bankruptcy by Hycroft in 2015, the project most recently produced at a small scale between 2019 and 2022.

“This is not the Hycroft that you used to know,” Garrett declared at last week’s Mining Forum Europe in Zürich.

“We have come into what’s always been known as a world-class asset, but low-grade, and we have turned it into something extremely amazing.”

Hycroft’s recent focus has been exploration.

“We were drawn to this company because we recognised there was an opportunity to find out what was feeding this massive resource, and by doing two years of meticulous technical work we have discovered not one, but two, very, very high-grade silver systems,” Garrett said.

“We’re now finding high-grade gold, and the story is just beginning and evolving.”

Brimstone and Vortex

Despite its long history and large resource, Hycroft estimates less than 10% of the project area of 64,000 acres has been explored.

The high-grade Brimstone deposit was discovered in late 2023.

“So, when we talk about high-grade, what do we mean? Well, our discovery hole, the best hole ever drilled in the 40-year history of Hycroft, was 85m of over 500 grams of silver,” Garrett said.

“Then we drilled the best hole ever again, and that was 21m of 2800g of silver.

“That was really spectacular and, in that hole, we had 80,000g intercepts, multi-thousand-gram intercepts, not just over small intervals, but 20, 30, 40, 50m intervals.

“This is staggering for us and for this orebody.”

Earlier this month, Hycroft reported a hit of 3.4m at 304.14g/t silver and 1.33g/t gold, including 7m at 1241.97g/t silver and 6.59g/t gold and a “phenomenal” 0.9m at 2890g/t silver and 33.7g/t gold at Vortex.

“We have never seen that anywhere at Hycroft, so we’re real excited about that,” Garrett said.

In February, Hycroft updated the resource for the project by 55% to 16.4 million ounces of gold and 562.6Moz of silver at 0.33g/t gold and 11.42g/t silver in the measured and indicated categories, as well as 5.03Moz of gold and 132.8Moz at 0.3g/t gold and 7.9g/t silver in the inferred category.

The company also reported an initial high-grade measured and indicated resource of 90.2Moz of silver at 154.7g/t silver for Brimstone and Vortex, as well as 13.3Moz at 125.18g/t silver in the inferred category.

There are still results from the two new discoveries which are yet to be included in the resource.

The company is working on step-out drilling with two rigs on site and another two on the way.

“We’re drilling three times the size of the program we did in our discovery year, so over 20,000m,” Garrett said.

“That’s an indication to you that we think these systems are going to become much larger. They’re still open in all directions and at depth.

“Our focus right now is on these two high-grade systems, but we’ve taken what we’ve learned at Brimstone and Vortex and we’re applying it to other areas and we’re seeing some very interesting things.

“Now we understand what is feeding this massive, low-grade resource and we think that we’re going to see much more potential on the high-grade throughout the district.”

Development plans

Hycroft has a preliminary economic assessment due imminently though it was started prior to the discovery of Brimstone and Vortex.

Garrett said the focus would be on a small, high-grade operation sized at around 3500-5000 tonnes per day.

The company will also assess a restart of the heap leach due to higher precious metal prices.

“We do believe it’s economic, so we’re looking at that as a potential revenue source as we bridge our way to the sulphide milling, and our motto is drill, baby, drill,” Garrett said.

This week, Hycroft appointed engineering consultancy RESPEC Company to review underground mining options at Brimstone and Vortex.

In parallel, the company is evaluating the development of an exploration decline to enable underground drill access.

“Brimstone starts within 30m of the bottom of the Brimstone pit, so very easy access,” Garrett said.

Hycroft already has permits for heap leaching and milling in place.

“We are different from most developers because we have a substantial amount of infrastructure on site,” Garrett said.

“We have a fully operational lab. We have truck shops, maintenance shops, warehouses, admin buildings. We have two processing facilities. We have a rail line that runs right through the property.

“We also have a brand new leach pad that is ready to receive ore because in about the first 20 years of the operation we’ll still be in and out of heap leach material in addition to milling material.”

Hycroft, which is 43% owned by Eric Sprott, has unrestricted cash of US$189 million and no debt.

The repayment of US$125.5 million of debt late last year, combined with exploration success and higher metal prices, saw Hycroft’s market capitalisation rise as high as US$4.5 billion.

The stock is up by more than 1000% over the past 12 months and Hycroft’s market cap now sits at US$3.6 billion.

“This is an evolving, developing story. It has been an amazing discovery,” Garrett said.

“Our share price has reflected that value, but we’ve only just scratched the surface and we have so much further to go.”