Fortitude Gold Corp

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 that are working hard to build and ramp up operations, the pace of activity has been intense. 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 and Isabella Pearl Scarlet South, completed a $12 million private placement, We entered into a 60% joint venture for the East Camp Douglas property. We had 3.2 million net sales, 10 million cash balance on March 31st, 2026, 688 gold ounces produced, 31.3 million working capital at March 31st, 2026, 2.2 million mine gross profit, 1.7 million exploration 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 costs for the Isabella Pearl Mine. 0.8 million dividends paid and 611 ounces of gold rounds or bullion at March 31st, 2026. Looking forward to We are now targeting a ramp up in 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 its extraction is part of the larger pit layback program. 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. The joint venture on East Camp with Sawthorne Land and Minerals is extremely exciting. It has not only allowed exploration efforts at East Camp to be reinstated immediately, but efforts are positioned on an accelerated and aggressive basis. 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. 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. This mineralization is both shallow in depth and possibly comprised of vein swarms that could potentially be mined via 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, 46.2 4 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. 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. 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. 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. 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?

Certainly. Everyone at this time will be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you have any questions and comments, please press star 1 on your phone at this time. 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. Type your question into the box and hit Send to submit your question. Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star 1 on your phone. Please hold while we poll for questions.