Commencement Of County Line Mine Operations

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – Fortitude Gold Corp. has commenced operations and has made its first shipment of mineralization to the Isabella Pearl gold processing facility. The County Line Project is comprised of two historic open pits, the County Line Pit and the East Pit. This initial mineralization is being mined from the bottom of the County Line Pit. A pit layback is planned to commence during the second half of 2026 and extend into the second half of 2027. The layback at the County Line Pit is required to access additional high-grade gold. Concurrent with the operations at the County Line Pit, the Company plans mining lower grade mineralization from the East Pit.
The Company is currently updating its County Line Mineral Resource to include exploration drilling from the East Pit which was drilled subsequent to, and not included in, the original 2022 Resource. In addition, the County Line Project has several areas with exciting exploration potential that are anticipated to expand the Project’s mine life, which include a target north of the County Line Pit, an area south of the East Pit, the Newman Ridge area to the east, as well as an area further to the south at the historic Rex Mine.
“We are excited to have begun operations at County Line marking another Fortitude Gold milestone of placing our second Nevada gold mine into production,” said CEO and President, Jason Reid. “In addition, having recently been granted permits for our Scarlet South open pit, we now target our third operating gold mine at Scarlet South in the very near future. Once we are granted permits, our synergistic hub and spoke business plan allows us to place new mines into production much faster and for less capital by leveraging existing infrastructure as opposed to building brand new processing facilities at every new mine. We plan to deliver gold to our Isabella Pearl processing facility from three different sources, Isabella Pearl deep, County Line, and Scarlet South, in 2026.”