FTCO FORTITUDE GOLD CORP

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FORTITUDE GOLD CORP Q3 F2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Conference Call Operator
Operator
Good day, everyone. Welcome to the Fortitude Gold 2026 third 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 star 1 on your phone to enter the question queue at any time. We will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Jason Reid, Chief Executive Officer of Fortitude Gold. Sir, the floor is yours.
Jason Reid
Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining 42 Gold Corp's 2026 Third 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 our Form 10-K and our 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, November 11, 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 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. The third quarter of 2026 highlights include 2,139 gold ounces produced, net income of $2 million, or 7 cents per share, 10.3 million net sales, 8.5 million cash balance at September 30, 2026, 27.3 million working capital at September 30, 2026, 5.2 million mine growth profit, 3.9 million exploration expenditures, 1,682 total cash cost after byproduct credits per ounce sold for Isabella Pearl Mine, 2,882 per ounce total all-in sustaining costs for Isabella Pearl Mine, 1,930 total cash cost after byproduct credits per ounce sold for the County Line Mine, 1,985 per ounce total all-in sustaining costs for the County Line Mine, 0.9 million dividends paid 611 ounces of gold rounds slash bullion held at September 30th, 2026. We continue to focus on the extraction of mineral from our Scarlet South and County Line mines while extracting the last of the oxide material from the Isabella Pearl Deep. We are optimistic that the permitting of our Golden Mile project has reached the stage where it could enter the NEPA phase very soon. The NEPA phase is The six-month review period moves us another major step toward permitting the mine. The Scarlet North analysis indicates that additional drilling and water table review will likely be necessary at some point in the future. However, given the current permit progress that's happening at Golden Mile, we expect to prioritize Golden Mile over Scarlet North as our next mine permitting priority. We are pleased with the grid power connection at our Isabella Pearl project and are seeing substantial energy savings. We are also pleased that the Isabella Pearl heat leach pad expansion is well underway. Once complete, the heat pad expansion would substantially increase our leach capacity and extend the life of our process operations. On the exploration front during the quarter, Easy Camp Douglas drill results include both wide and high grade gold intercepts. Intercepts included 13.72 meters grading 3.58 grams per ton gold, 28.96 meters grading 2.07 grams per ton gold, and 21 meters grading 1.43 grams per ton gold among many other excellent intercepts. These results were from three separate areas in the north of the district. We expect our exploration EA permit soon as its six-month NEPA process nears completion. Receiving the EA permit would allow us to open up a huge 150 new acres for exploration as opposed to the 10 acres we currently are restricted to under the two legacy Notice of Intent exploration permits. With the ability to create new drill pads, we want to expand known areas of mineralization and discover new areas. There's also potential to connect some of these mineralized zones together. Our goal is to discover, delineate, and permit an initial deposit in the shortest timeframe possible. We continue to focus on obtaining all possible permits under the Trump administration, and in case the country moves back into an anti-business, anti-mining administration like we had during the brutal Biden regime. With that, I would like to thank everyone for their time today on this conference call. Operator, if you can open up the lines for any possible Q&A.
Conference Call Operator
Operator
Certainly. The floor is now open for questions. If you have any questions or comments, please press star 1 on your phone at this time. We ask that while posing your question, you please pick up your handset if listening on a speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Please hold a few moments while we pull for any live questions.
Jason Reid
Chief Executive Officer
Operator, before we get to the live questions, I do have an email question or several questions I want to get to from Dr. Joshi. Thank you for your questions. Good to hear from you again. Number one on your question list is with Q3 production at 2,139 ounces, What is management's realistic expectation for quarterly production in Q4 2026 and the first half of 2027? When might we see more substantial and sustained increase? Great question. As you know, we have a lot going on with new mines coming online, Isabella Pearl being depleted. We have a lot of variables here and we're not forecasting our production at this point just because whatever we forecast would be wrong. so we're not we're not going to talk about 2027 as far as forecast and yeah we've never given a quarter of the outlook but obviously the goal is to increase production over time your second question is county line in regards to county line county line contributed 1075 ounces in q3 a very encouraging result can this level of production be sustained or improved how will the main pit lay back at the anticipated higher grade mineralization effect production during 2027? Great questions. So county line, for those who may not know, has higher grade in the main pit and then the east pit has some lower grade. We're mining both the high grade and low grade right now, mostly the low grade in the east pit, but we're doing a ramp retreat in the main pit with getting to some high grade. so again it's very hard to forecast that because it's a function of lending these low and high grades the production outlook though will be driven by how soon we can get to the pearl deep but we've been very fortunate that we're hitting high grade getting the ramp retreat so the ideal situation is this production over time increases but as far as those ounces, they're going to vary depending on whether we're pulling more from the lower grade east or more from the deep. And the pit layback is going to take quite some time. So there'll be a point in time when we're just focused on the east pit, which is lower grade. So again, quarter on quarter variability. Number three, Isabella Pearl cost. Your AISC, your all-in sustaining cost at Isabella Pearl increased significantly to $2,882. per ounce in Q3. What were the main reasons for this increase and should shareholders expect cost to improve as Pearl Deep winds down and Scarlet South becomes the principal mining area? Costs applied to the heap leach pad in any given quarter or year impact the cost per ounce. The massive waste removal to mine Pearl Deep land on the pad and impact the cost per ounce. The ounces that are produced also drive those numbers. These are among the variables that drive the cost per ounce. As for forecasting future cost per ounce numbers, any estimate I would make would likely be incorrect. Remember that it was never our original plan to mine the Pearl Deep. We mined Pearl Deep in response to the Biden administration's permit backlog and our limited options at that time. So great question, but those costs totally vary depending on what inputs. Your fourth question is cash flow and funding. Despite the improved quarterly earnings, operating cash flow for the first nine months remains negative. When does management expect to achieve consistent, positive operating cash flow after allowing for working capital, exploration, development, and expenditures? Is further equity financing likely to be necessary? Again, great questions. Financing is always a possibility. but as you know, we are always focused on trying to keep the tightest capital structure for producer in our space and we've done so. And as you also know, we're racing to get these new mines into production, having been through the permit backlog, getting no new permits. When Trump got in, we got two new ones. That was never the ideal, but we're trying to get these two new ones up and running. They do take time. We are also just still bouncing back from the previous administration. Your fifth question, Golden Mile and East Camp Douglas. Could you provide an update to shareholders on permitting timetable for Golden Mile and the expiration permit for East Camp Douglas? In particular, is the company still confident of commencing Golden Mile development in 2027 and significantly expanding East Camp Douglas drilling next year? Great questions again. So on Golden Mile, as I mentioned in my comments, We're very close to entering the NEPA phase. This is great because the NEPA phase is about six months. That's their timeframe. Once it enters that, it's almost like a clock at that point where we should expect it after six months. So once we see that enter, it's go time. We're going to be really focused on planning on building our next mine because that's what we want to see. We want to see NEPA hit, that process go through, and then we should have the permission to build that mine. We fully intend to build that mine next year in 2027. The exact time frame we can't give you, but we're very fortunate that that project is in the FAST 41, the government's website. It's actually listed in there under the permitting phase. And so we're really seeing some positive movement in that regard, and that's why we're focusing on East Camp. This has been a long struggle with East Camp. and anybody who's followed us long enough remembers that we gave our East Camp permit back with the previous Biden administration only to find out when they left office that they didn't even look at it. So we had to kind of start from scratch with the new administration, but they're moving very quickly comparatively. So we're very excited on East Camp, or excuse me, Golden Mile. that was all about Golden Mile. As far as East Camp goes, East Camp is also approaching the end of its NEAPA. So whereas Golden Miles, we want to get it started, East Camp is at the back end of the six-month process. So the exact time frame on East Camp, again, I can't give you, but we believe it's very soon, whether it's two weeks, whether it's a month. don't know, but point being, it's that kind of timeframe at this point from what we see. Once we get that, we will be able to open up instead of the 10 acres, as I mentioned in the conference call, to 150 acres. So we've, Al, our VP of exploration, Alan's done a great job with basically a hand tied behind his back with our limited areas to drill permitted areas areas to drill and finding this in great grade, nice mining widths. It's a district-sized land position, but we're positioning ourselves to have five to seven drills up there once we get this permit in hand, and we'll have 150 acres to go drill. I mean, this will be a game changer for the property. So we're very excited on that. Both of those we think we'll be very focused on in 2027 and yeah that'll be exciting time building another new mine and basically doing an exploration program the likes of which we've never done as a company having you know possibly seven drills that'll be excellent. So thank you for all those questions. Operator are there any live questions? I see that there's several in the written Q&A but it will get to some live if there are any otherwise I'll go to the
Conference Call Operator
Operator
Yes, there is one live question coming from John Bear at Ascend Wealth Advisors. Please pose your question. Your line is live.
John Bear
Ascend Wealth Advisors
Thank you. Good morning, Jason. John, how are you? I'm doing fine. One question is, in your prepared release, you distinguished between realized prices from Isabel Pearl and County Line. How are you doing that? Is it on different cells on your leech pad then or timing of ore that's being laid out there? How are you distinguishing that?
Jason Reid
Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I'm going to have Janet address this. She'll be probably a little clearer than I would be.
Janet Turner
Chief Financial Officer
Hi, good morning. As far as you're talking about allocating production, is that what your question is, John?
John Bear
Ascend Wealth Advisors
Well, in the press releases, you realized average gold medal prices in the quarter for Isabel Pearl, $42.85, while County Line averaged $42.58. Not a whole big difference, but I'm just kind of curious how you're coming, you know, what is the process that is allowing you to differentiate the prices realized as well as your all in sustaining cost differentials rather large as well. So I'm assuming that the ore from County Line is in one spot on the leach pad and Isabel Pearl's on another. Is that right?
Janet Turner
Chief Financial Officer
No, it's all co-mingled. And so we have a monthly allocation based on where we're mining and where the ore is coming from. So we're co-mingling all that ore. And so on a monthly basis, if we know that we mined, you know, Z amount of balances and we have X and Y for County Line and Isabella Pearl making that up, then that's the monthly allocation. And so we assume, because the OR is very similar as far as the leaching abilities and the timing of that leaching. So we just assume, you obviously have to make a lot of assumptions because you don't know what that OR is. So you have to kind of say on a monthly basis, if we took X ounces from County Line and Y ounces from Isabella Pearl and put it on the leach pad, that same amount of percentage is going to be coming out as a leached ounce as well. Does that make sense?
John Bear
Ascend Wealth Advisors
Okay, so it's sort of a pro rata.
Janet Turner
Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, it's pro rata. And so then it's a lot of timing. It's a lot of timing as far as the cost. There was a shipment of... the slag and the carbon fines that was 100% attributable to Isabella Pearl that was during the quarter that we sold. And so that obviously impacts Isabella Pearl and the timing of when we sell those ounces and the price, obviously. And when you're looking at the average cost over the quarter, if earlier in the quarter more Isabella Pearl ounces were sold, then county line ounces were sold, then they would have a higher cost per ounce, higher realized price because in the quarter, the average realized price was higher, right? Because we saw a downturn in prices towards the end of the quarter.
John Bear
Ascend Wealth Advisors
Okay. All right. Second question is, how are you addressing the cost of diesel? Is there any operational... efficiencies that you can do to either reduce the amount of diesel that you're using and I'm thinking primarily of the shipping between county line and bringing it to the leach pad there.
Jason Reid
Chief Executive Officer
Good question. So diesel was one of our major costs. It still is a large cost but it was one of our major costs and it was one of our focuses to get hooked to the power grid as you know and we again spent four years during the last administration couldn't get that energy permit and right out of the gate without even asking the new administration gave us the permit so we finally got hooked to the power grid and we're seeing probably a range of seventy to a hundred thousand dollars savings a month it's true it's great if we were having to buy diesel right now now we still have diesel costs in because we have a diesel mining fleet. So we're still impacted by whatever the diesel price is, but that was very important and critical for us to get to the power grid. That's what we fought so hard to finally get that done.
John Bear
Ascend Wealth Advisors
I was thinking more in trucking ore, if there's any way to... minimize the impact of, you know, have you looked into, you know, electric vehicles, electric truck kind of thing or any of that kind of?
Jason Reid
Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, we really haven't. I haven't. No, we're just going to be hit by whatever the diesel cost is, depending on what mine we're mining from. Now, you know, for Isabella Pearl, you can't get any closer to the process facility. If you're at Scarlet South, you're really close to this. The big impact is County Line, which is 19 kilometers up the road. There's nothing we can do about that. But having said that, keep in mind we're also gaining on synergies in as much as we're not having to build a whole facility out at County Line. We were able to start the County Line mine for about as cheap as any mine could be built, because all we have to do is truck it down the road. You're not building everything there, another process. and then when we extrapolate that out looking forward for Golden Mile, that's a little farther away and so we're not going to be trucking the ore that long distance. So this will speak to what you're asking about. We're not going to be trucking the ore. We bought all the equipment like the process and it sits in our lay down yard. It's been engineered, designed, built, paid for. sits in our lay down yard. When we get the approval, we'll haul it out, set it up. Then when we process the ore out there, we'll take gold to the carbon phase and just truck the carbon, which is substantially less volume in trucking costs all the way back to our process facility. So that's how we're trying to navigate the efficiencies, if you will. And in doing so, we'll have We won't be hit by this massive, you know, diesel hauling ore directly there. The project wouldn't sustain itself if we were trying to do that. Does that make sense?
John Bear
Ascend Wealth Advisors
Yes, absolutely. And again, having purchased the equipment for Golden Mile well in advance, you probably saved quite a significant amount with inflation.
Jason Reid
Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, we did.
John Bear
Ascend Wealth Advisors
Now, having said that... Raising costs of equipment and stuff for that. Yeah, yeah.
Jason Reid
Chief Executive Officer
having said that having done that though when we were trying to navigate the last administration's permit backlog and going deeper etc. and then with the overall plan we needed to use that crusher that we bought for Golden Mile and that's actively being used at Isabella Pearl so we will need to purchase another crusher out at for Golden Mile but that was just optionality and maneuverability to make sure we stay in business during that administration.
John Bear
Ascend Wealth Advisors
Okay, one last question. How many rigs do you have active right now? And in conjunction with that, the spend rate so far with the JV, are you able to share how much has been spent? I mean, I guess I could go in there and take a look at... Exploration costs, I don't know if I could break it out between East Camp versus other operations.
Jason Reid
Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, so our exploration, we have, as far as drill rigs, I assume you're meaning, we have at least four, we have four right now. And we're in position to have as many as seven. And it's been kind of challenging to get the rigs, especially, you know, with gold popping to 5,000 earlier in the year, over 5,000. Boy, the rigs are really hard to come by, but we have good relationships with different drill companies, and we're in position to secure seven as our goal. Assuming that happens, we get the permit, we've never had seven drill rigs. So that's where we sit today, about four with the goal to go to seven. And as far as spend, for Fortitude, we've done about 1.4 million expiration this year for Fortitude. Fortitude Gold's, not JV, but it's other expiration. If we just look at the JV East Camp or 2.6 for the quarter, for the quarter. So that's about 3.9 million for the quarter of expiration, which the bulk of it is East Camp Douglas. So yeah, I'm really excited about getting this permit because East Camp, as I've always stated, is home run potential for us. And with this JV and with the financial firepower behind the JV, we're in position to put seven drill rigs, really? I mean, this is very exciting for me. This puts us in the position to find one, if not multiple deposits, delineate them quickly.
spk00
The goal up there is to I think 20.7.
John Bear
Ascend Wealth Advisors
If you get up to seven drill rigs, the majority of those would be at East Camp then?
Jason Reid
Chief Executive Officer
Yes, they'll all be at East Camp. Okay, so we've never had seven drill rigs, so you can imagine the workload that's going to be on our exploration team. We won't have the bandwidth, nor do we want to focus a lot of the capital on all our other properties. Between those two things, you know, we hope to do some exploration for, for instance, I personally want to hopefully drill in 2027 Prospect Mountain because that could be the next Isabella Pearl. But beyond that, most all drilling will be at East Camp. That'll be the sole focus. And yeah, we're going to be, we've never had an exploration plan like this. Those who are joined online, please look at the slide I forwarded because it revolves or addresses some aspects of the question I'm about to read here from the online portal. Are you concerned with future permit approvals considering the recent election result? And can we file for and secure more permits now under the current administration over the next few years? For those who joined online, I'm showing you a slide I prepared in preparation for this possible question. We expected to get this question. What's interesting is, you know, this came from an article Tuesday, November 10th, so it's very current. And for those who aren't able to see it, I'm going to read a lot of it. A major win for nuclear energy, nearing half of the Senate Democrats joined GOP to advance permitting overall. The Senate voted 73 to 25 on Monday evening to open debate on the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, the sweeping permit overhaul written by Republicans and Democrats alike, and they name who they are. Supporters were hoping to get for 15 to 20 Democrats, good for around 70 votes. And the odds of success by this one group said it was 25 to 40%. Instead, 51 Republicans and 21 Democrats and one independent voted yes. That's 22 of 47 senators who caucused with Democrats, nearly half backing the bill, backing a bill Trump has endorsed. And so I'm not going to read every one of these bullet points on this slide, but point being, well, I should read some of them. Let me do a couple of them because they're good. so including a limit of no more than two years for federal decisions on environmental approvals and restraints on agendas or excuse me on agencies ability to withdraw permits that's good if they put a limit on how long they can draw permits in two years that's that'd be wonderful the next bullet point amending the national environmental policy act the NEPA which you hear me refer to several times by reducing the scope of its applicable applicability, i.e., who can sue and on what grounds. Accelerating the build out of transmission lines for enhanced backstop authority gives federal government more authority to approve major lines and helps permitting process much faster. So you're getting the point that they're trying to streamline it. They're trying to limit the NGOs ability to sue. and these are all positive things and what I find really positive and this just happened is that both sides of the aisle are coming into play and Greg and I were just talking about this before the conference call that you know because we're getting quite a few questions about the election and the impact of that is that even those perhaps on the far left that maybe have more of an anti-mining bent or slant people are waking up on both sides of the aisle that we cannot ignore metals and how important they are for our way of existence. And so there has to be a happy medium and I think what we're seeing here in this particular discussion that I'm showing you here and talking about, that's happening. So even though the election happened the way it did, It's still a positive that both sides of the aisle are coming together. Now, dovetailing into both of those, another question we're getting is what about the new governor of Nevada? Governor-elect Aaron Ford. He's a Democrat and he replaced a Republican, Joe Lombardo. What impact did that have? Well, if you look at his focus, he stated that that the economic development agenda includes expanding Nevada's mining-related economy. He is fully aware of how important Nevada and its economy is tied to mining. And to underscore that, Greg pulled some interesting numbers for me just looking at the mining tax revenue. And if we look at 2024, the Nevada Mining Association estimates the industry paid $483 million in taxes. And in 2025, that jumped to $686 million. So I don't think in any world, no matter what side of the aisle, Nevada is going to walk away from that kind of revenue, especially given the economic situation of the world, let alone each state. Am I happy about their election results and the potential to move back to a Biden era of anti-mining, anti-business? No, I'm not. And that concerns me. So let me just address the question. Let me go back to the question of what can we do? We are trying to permit everything we possibly can. And we're in the position to get this Golden Mile permit, hopefully, maybe six, seven months from now, depending on when they start the NEPA process and then hopefully start building immediately after that. So that will help us weather the storm, if you will. In conjunction with that, we're trying to get every possible permit we can. So great question. And that came from Ronald Darcy. Thanks, Ronald. All right, second question from Peter Mumford. Very encouraging quarter. A couple quarters ago, you spoke about wage pressures from your equipment operators. Has that stabilized or is it ongoing? Peter, I think you might be referring to, instead of equipment operators, just wage pressure in general. Yes. Look, it is a fact in this industry that there's not enough people in this industry and we compete with every all our peers for the best possible team and yes that is ongoing and I don't I don't see any relief for that possibly in the rest of my career until we have a bunch of people a bunch of college students start coming out of college with mining engineer degrees etc. I don't know how this pressure is going to be relieved I just don't see a lot of people going into this industry. And anybody who has kids in college or trying to figure out what to do, hey, at least suggest to them, why don't you go into mining? As far as I'm concerned, if you graduate with a mining engineer, you're going to be calling your own shots in the future. So that pressure is still ongoing, and I don't see any relief from that. But great question. next question again from Peter Mumford you have a lot of exciting opportunities at your different mines how are you allocating mining resources among the various properties another great question so as I think you wouldn't you know and and most on the call but if not I'm going to just repeat this the last administration knocked us flat off our horse we're climbing back on we have new permits in hand we're working to get new permits to build new mines but Yeah, it's been a slog. It has not been fun. And so we have to manage our capital and manage our focuses to specific things. Those you heard me talk about today, Golden Mile, that is important. We get that permit. East Cam Douglas, get that permit to explore 150 acres and put us in the position to have a company changing situation where we could find a one or more deposits in which that becomes our focus going forward. Obviously, we have all these other properties with all this other potential, and I wish we could have seven drills on the whole thing. We don't have the capital under fortitude to go do that. So we have to focus on it. Everything's been tight. It just is what it is. But we're doing everything possible to get as many permits as possible. We have a great plan with drilling coming up. and so those are our focuses. Okay, boy, there's a lot of questions. We're not gonna be able to get to all these today, but the next one, Brian Segebart. Would the cash balance currently sit in less than 10? Do you still believe future mining development and exploration will be funded internally with cash flow? Obviously, that would be the goal. We're not gonna be doing a ton of drilling at Fortitude's other properties, as you heard me say, so we're gonna save a lot in exploration. but yeah, we're just going to see. We're just going to see how it goes. Thanks for the question. Next question, Harvey Bowen. While you wait for permits, is there enough production to support operations and continue dividends? Great question, Harvey. Yeah, obviously our goal is to continue the dividends. Again, that's not easy. That hasn't been easy the whole time either, but I think it speaks volumes that we can continue to pay it through all the difficult years that we lived through. but good question. Thank you. Next question, Adam Hirsch, across your operations, roughly how many loaded ore trucks trips are you averaging per day with the expanded leach bag coming online? And new crusher capacity, what steps are you taking to increase the amount or you move each day? Okay, as far as the crusher, I think I mentioned that we took this much larger crusher that we purchased that was gonna go to Golden Mile and we put it in the circuit at Isabella Pearl. So we have plenty of crushing capacity. That's obviously something we have to replace when we go build Golden Mile because we're going to leave that crusher there. So we're fine on crushing capacity and the ore trips depends on what we're focused on that day. Sometimes we're focused more on and Scarlett South, which is only about 500 meters away. And sometimes we're focused on County Line, which is 19 kilometers away. But yeah, that varies. Thanks, Adam, for your question. Your next question, again, from Adam. How have the partnerships on the two new properties helped advance those projects so far? Partnerships on the two new properties. Yeah, I think it is one new property is what I think you mean. And that's with Hawthorne, the JV. We are very excited that Hawthorne shares our view on what Keith's camp can be, and it's gone great. And yeah, you've heard me talk about having, you know, we have four drills, all of which I think are up there right now and positioned to get seven. it's going very well. Okay, next question, again from Adam. Looking at 2027, what major equipment purchases and other capital spending do you expect Fortitude itself to fund mine all in process? Equipment purchases will be the crusher, as I mentioned, and some liner, heap liner, but as John and I, John, who had a question early on and I were discussing, I'm very glad that we purchased the process. We had it designed, engineered, built, and it sits in our lay down yard. I would pause to think what that would cost if we built that today. It would be a heck of a lot more. So I'm glad we did that. So that would be the major purchase if we had to do anything at Golden Mile, but we've already done it. Yeah, we still have some purchases ahead of us, but yeah, the big one's out of the way. Okay, the next one, Timothy Paul. Is the county line ore placed on the pad, converting to gold at a slower pace than Isabella Pearl? I notice that the inventory figure has grown significantly, 70 million approximately, and should one assume that you have determined that gold processing will require longer term. These are all great questions. Every ore has a different recovery curve, a metallurgical recovery curve, meaning what time frame that takes to pull the ore out. So it gets quite complicated when we're blending ore, putting it on the pad, a pad that has numerous levels. And then on each level is the checkerboard, if you will, call those cells. And we, we put each cell under drip for various times and alternate them because that's, that's the best way to pull gold out. You don't just constantly keep it under drip. You take it off drip, put it back on. There's so many, I mean, a heat bleach pad has a life of its own and you know, then you get a hard rain and then it changes the makeup of it and it, it, modifies for a minute and then comes back to stabilization. So I'm just giving you some insight that it's pretty difficult to put your finger on it and say, hey, this is the exact what's happening. But what I can tell you is the residual leach takes a while. So we get this first initial bump and then the residual leach takes a while. It could take years. But that's just part and parcel of the heap leach. Operator, are there any more live calls before I keep moving on.
Conference Call Operator
Operator
Nope, there are no live questions at this time.
Jason Reid
Chief Executive Officer
Okay. There's a couple more right in. Let's see if we can get to them all.
John Bear
Ascend Wealth Advisors
Let me refresh here.
Jason Reid
Chief Executive Officer
All right. The next one is from Adam Hirsch. You mined about 90,000 tons per month on Avenue Q3. What's the biggest constraint today on getting above 100,000 tons a month mined and stacked on the heap leash pad? Is it getting more ore out of the pits? having enough crews and trucks to move it or capacity at the crusher. So it's not crusher or leach pad capacity. The biggest constraint, well, there's a couple of them, because again, this question applies to three different mines, right? Isabel Pearl Deep, Scarlet, South, and County Line. So each one you could answer for these but I'm not gonna go into every single one of them, it'd take too long but let me just talk about County Line. County Line, as far as its situation is, we have in the bottom of the pit some high grade and then on a peripheral pit called the east zone, we have lower grade and then there's more higher grade at the bottom but we have to move a tremendous amount of waste. So it's juggling between all three of those. We're mining low grade, are mining some high grade in the bottom. We're doing a ramp retreat. We're doing a pushback. So to try to answer your question, it all varies based on what's happening at that particular week, what's happening in that particular quarter. But the mining is often what's the gating factor. And for the county line pit, the main pit, It's space. It's not that big of a pit. And you have to cycle. You have to drill, blast, haul out. There's only so much you can do in a given time frame. So the mining cycle impacts it. So it's very dynamic. But good questions. I hope I answered some of those. So listen, this conference call was much longer than I thought. Let's call it here. If I didn't get to your question, please call Greg and I if you didn't get the answer you wanted to call us. We're happy to talk to you directly. And with that, we'll close out the call. Thank you for your time. We'll talk to you next quarter.
Conference Call Operator
Operator
Thank you, everyone. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.