Colorado-based miner Fortitude Gold has brought operations at its County Line mine in Nevada online and has made its first shipment of mineralization to the company’s strategically located Isabella Pearl gold processing facility.
The company’s County Line project, its second gold mine in Nevada, is comprised of two historic open pits, the County Line Pit and the East Pit. The 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, it noted.
At the same time, Fortitude said it will mine the lower-grade mineralization from the East Pit.
Additionally, there are several with exploration potential that are expected 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.
“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,” said Fortitude Gold CEO and President Jason Reid, looking ahead.
“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.”
Reid continued that Biden-era permit backlogs were a “brutal setback” for Fortitude, derailing its original mine building timelines and production targets.
“If there is silver lining from those four brutal Biden-era years, it is that we now get to sell gold ounces at these record gold market price levels under the pro-business and pro-mining Trump Administration where we target permitting additional mines like our Scarlet North and Golden Mile Projects,” he added.
Source: fortitudegold.com