Q1 2026 Fortitude Gold Corp Earnings Call
Speaker #1: Q2 gold 2026 first quarter conference call. At this time, all participants are placed on a listen-only mode. If you have any questions or comments during the presentation, you may press *1 on your phone to enter the question queue at any time, and we'll open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation.
Speaker #1: It is now my pleasure to hand the floor over to your host, Jason Reid. Sir, the floor is yours.
Speaker #2: Great, thank you, Matthew. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Fortitude Gold Corp's 2026 first quarter conference call. Following my comments and associated presentation for those who joined online, we will have a question-and-answer period.
Speaker #2: Joining me on the call today for the Q&A portion will be Ms. Janet Turner, our Chief Financial Officer. Let me remind everyone that certain statements made on this call are not historical facts and are considered forward-looking statements.
Speaker #2: These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, as described in our annual report on Form 10-K and other SEC filings, which could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by our comments.
Speaker #2: Forward-looking statements in the earnings release that we issued yesterday, along with the comments on this call, are made only as of today, May 12, 2026, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update any of these forward-looking statements as actual events unfold.
Speaker #2: You can find a reconciliation of our non-GAAP financial measures referred to in our remarks in our Form 10-K filed with the SEC for the year ended December 31, 2025.
Speaker #2: To say the first quarter of 2026 was extremely busy is an understatement. While we are pleased to have two new mine permits in hand and are working hard to build and ramp up operations, the pace of activity has been intense.
Speaker #2: As a result of these efforts, gold production increased progressively each month during the quarter. First quarter 2026 financial results and highlights included: commenced production at County Line in Isabella Pearls, Scarlet South; completed a $12 million private placement; we entered into a 60% joint venture with East Camp Douglas Property; we had $3.2 million net sales; $10 million cash balance on March 31, 2026; $688 gold ounces produced; $31.3 million working capital at March 31, 2026; $2.2 million mine gross profit; $1.7 million expiration expenditures; $1,017 total cash cost after byproduct credits per ounce gold sold for Isabella Pearl Mine; $2,263 per ounce total all-in sustaining cost for the Isabella Pearl Mine; $0.8 million dividends paid and $611 ounces of gold rounds or bullion at March 31, 2026.
Speaker #2: Looking forward, we are now targeting a ramp-up and throughput tons from areas being mined to achieve higher gold production in future quarters. We are actively mining from the Isabella Pearl Deep, Scarlet South, and the County Line East Pit areas.
Speaker #2: The latter two areas have a lower average grade that requires increased throughput to achieve more production. To achieve this throughput increase, we installed and commissioned our larger crushing facility.
Speaker #2: The one we originally purchased for the Golden Mile project. And installed it at the Isabella Pearl Processing Facility. For those who joined online, you are seeing images of that crushing system in operation.
Speaker #2: Our team has done a great job bringing that crushing system online. It is expected to more than triple our crushing throughput capacity. Going from approximately 250 tons per hour on the old crusher to easily doing over 800 tons per hour throughput with this new crushing facility.
Speaker #2: The power line construction has reached the Isabella Pearl project. A custom-built switchgear continues to be the last thing between us and grid power. This delay in delivery is frustrating, but we are told this month is the month.
Speaker #2: Substantial power savings are expected once the line is connected. Among our many ongoing projects, reaching the high-grade gold at the County Line main pit is a priority.
Speaker #2: We are actively mining the old access ramp at the County Line main pit as we prepare for the pit layback. The ramp has some nice gold grades, and it's extraction is part of the larger pit layback program.
Speaker #2: The layback is expected to take the rest of the year to complete. Accessing the approximate 40,000 ounces of high-grade gold after the pit layback is complete is targeted for 2027 and 2028 production.
Speaker #2: The joint venture on East Camp with Hawthorne Land & Minerals is extremely exciting. It is not only allowed exploration efforts at East Camp to be reinstated immediately, but efforts are positioned on an accelerated and aggressive basis.
Speaker #2: The likes of which Fortitude could not have achieved in the foreseeable future by itself. We are pleased Hawthorne shares our vision in our district-sized land position and whose JV during the quarter allowed the initiation of an extremely aggressive exploration program.
Speaker #2: Initial results from the drilling program in East Camp have returned what may represent the strongest set of drill intercepts the company has achieved to date.
Speaker #2: This mineralization, though shallow in depth and possibly comprised of vein swarms that could potentially be mined, be open pit. Intercepts recently announced during the second quarter included 3.05 meters grading 12.90 grams per ton gold within 24.38 meters grading 3.89 grams per ton gold, 10.67 meters grading 2.08 grams per ton gold, 46.24 meters grading 1.13 grams per ton gold, 7.62 meters grading 4.95 grams per ton gold, 7.62 meters grading 3.13 grams per ton gold, and 18.29 meters grading 1.1 grams per ton gold.
Speaker #2: While we have and continue to expect positive outcomes from our targeted mine builds, both active and in the future queues, I have said for years East Camp Douglas represents home-run potential for Fortitude.
Speaker #2: These recent drill results set us up for that potential. In addition to East Camp Douglas, exploration efforts are focused on Scarlet and County Line with the goal of expanding mineralization in those areas.
Speaker #2: On the permit front, we continue to work to obtain permits for Golden Mile and Scarlet North. We want to permit everything possible during this mining-friendly administration.
Speaker #2: With that, I would like to thank everyone for their time today on this conference call. Operator, will you please open up the lines if there are any possible Q&A?
Speaker #1: Certainly. Everyone at this time will be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you have any questions and comments, please press *1 on your phone at this time.
Speaker #1: We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if you're listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. If you're listening through webcast, you can submit a question by clicking on the Ask Question button on the left of your screen.
Speaker #1: Type your question into the box and hit Send to submit your question. Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press *1 on your phone.
Speaker #1: Please hold while we pull for questions.
Speaker #3: Okay. Matthew, I'm waiting to pull if there's any live Q&A. We do have some write-in questions, so I'll get to those first. The first question is from Tim well, first four or five questions is from Tim Betcher.
Speaker #3: Here are a few things I hope management team will address. One, what is the anticipated ramp-up of production? It would be good to have some perspective on that.
Speaker #3: Tim, great question. We're not going to forecast production until we get our feet firmly under us. We're starting up two new mines in addition to the Pearl Deep mining.
Speaker #3: It has many moving parts. Scarlet South and the County Line East pit have a lower average grade compared to the Pearl Deep and County Line main pit.
Speaker #3: So as you heard on my comments, we just commissioned our larger crusher to increase throughput as a means to allow for increased production. 2026 is the rebuild year.
Speaker #3: So we target increased production later in the year. But forecasting a number of ounces is complicated. Your second question, what, if any, new costs are involved in the running of three mines instead of just one?
Speaker #3: Another great question, Tim. Trucking costs from Scarlet South and County Line are new. With County Line being the farther distance of the two, we expect to offset some of the trucking costs with the grid power savings.
Speaker #3: We estimate approximately 80 to 100 thousand dollars a month in energy savings. We hope this month will be the final month to connect us.
Speaker #3: It has been a struggle to make this power line happen. And once we can actually connect, we plan to press release that news. Hopefully this month.
Speaker #3: Third question, do you have any issues with manpower in important areas of expertise that need to be addressed? Another great question. Manpower is always an issue, Tim.
Speaker #3: We recently lost people to a neighboring operation that poached some of our people. Retaining manpower is a real issue that will likely increase going forward.
Speaker #3: I've talked about this in previous conference calls. With metal prices up, more interest in the mining space, many old and new companies starting up activities, it's a challenge to keep people where employees will leave us for a dollar more an hour to go to another operation.
Speaker #3: We have stunned the tide of the recent manpower losses for the time being that I expect manpower issues to be an issue going forward for the entire industry, for that matter.
Speaker #3: Fourth question, how should investors think about the dividend going forward? Will it be tied to free cash flow or some other metric or financial metric?
Speaker #3: Great question. The dividend will not be tied to metrics. We used to do that with the past company and no dividend policy can adequately capture all the inputs, variables, and operational unknowns to create a clean long-lasting policy.
Speaker #3: As always, we are still committed to the dividend, but we are also working to get our feet under us to overcome the Biden era challenges we're building new mines.
Speaker #3: That all takes capital. So with that, we continue with our dividend policy that is stated on our corporate presentation. It gives us latitude to modify as we see fit.
Speaker #3: Tim, great questions. There's another question we've got from several people. Just want to address it. It's a general question. Revolves around any supply disruptions due to global unrest or wars.
Speaker #3: The response to that question is that there isn't. Any supply issues. I was just a site last week and I heard nothing about supply issues.
Speaker #3: And with these recent questions, I circled back with a general manager yesterday there's no supply issues at this point in time. So hopefully that gets in front of that.
Speaker #3: We operator, are there any live questions? There's some others in the portal, but I'll see if there's any live first.
Speaker #1: Certainly. There are no questions in the queue at this time. And once again, everyone, if you have any questions or comments, please press *1 on your phone.
Speaker #3: Okay. So we do have some questions and a question in the Q&A. When will the company be listed on a Canadian mining exchange as a Canadian?
Speaker #3: I trade through a tax-free savings account. Which most speculators trade on. Also, Canadian mining journalists will only report on companies on major exchanges. This was by Gary Hayes.
Speaker #3: Gary, thank you for the question. I great question. Interesting that we are a US-based company. We're one of the few, very few US-based mining companies.
Speaker #3: Most mining companies are based in Canada or elsewhere. With our past company, we actually looked twice at uplisting into Canada. And it didn't make sense for a number of reasons at that time.
Speaker #3: So I'm going to assume those same reasons will hold and be the same. What some of the primary reasons are the capitals here in the US.
Speaker #3: So going back to your point of an uplisting, when and if we uplist, it will be the New York Stock Exchange. It won't be the Amex.
Speaker #3: Or the NASDAQ, excuse me. It'll be the American Stock Exchange. We've done this in the past. We know the guys there. We would like to do that with a serious catalyst.
Speaker #3: I think that makes more sense. I've watched some companies uplist just to uplist stake and it didn't do anything for their stock. So when the time is right, the uplisting will likely happen to the New York Stock Exchange.
Speaker #3: And at that point, it'll address some of your questions. Or in some of your issues. Having said that, we typically don't play well in Canada.
Speaker #3: We don't lower our head grade to tie a bunch of uneconomic ounces to try to impress the market with a resource that'll never be mined.
Speaker #3: So we don't play well in Canada in that regard. So I don't ever really expect to be followed by a lot in the Canadian market, but that's okay.
Speaker #3: We've proven with our past company and this company, we've done great things. Just focusing on where the money is and that's the New York Stock Exchange.
Speaker #3: Great question. Another question. From Craig Hooper, are you still working in the IP deep? Any results that you can report on great recovery? Great question.
Speaker #3: Yes, we are. And you probably heard me say that in some of the comments. We had to move a lot of material and create a new ramp access down.
Speaker #3: And then do this pit layback and those who followed us know that took the better part of the year. We're there now. We're mining it.
Speaker #3: There's high-grade pockets. There's also some low-grade to make sure to take it as well. So yeah, we're happy I have to say the Isabella Pearl has exceeded all of our expectations.
Speaker #3: I mean, we came into the Isabella Pearl pushing a four-year mine life and I was just out there talking to the guys. We've been out there seven years.
Speaker #3: It's an incredible deposit. We are really pushing to find another one of these. Across the highway from us with a 300-ounce producer in the past.
Speaker #3: We have the trend that goes for 10 kilometers. And I truly believe there'll be another Isabella Pearl. And we just want to be the ones that find it.
Speaker #3: But Isabella Pearl is a phenomenal deposit. And it's fun to still be mining it. So that's wonderful. With that, let's close the conference. If I didn't get to your question, feel free to reach out to Greg or myself.
Speaker #3: And we look forward to updating you next quarter. Thank you, everybody.
