Banyan Gold lines up its Q4 PEA on about 8.6 million ounces at AurMac

## A large resource, shown two ways

Banyan Gold's AurMac project in Yukon carries a new mineral resource that President and CEO Tara Christie calls "a very large resource" — 3.64 million ounces indicated (enough drilling confidence for mine planning) and 5 million ounces inferred (earlier-stage confidence), "open in all directions, particularly at depth." The interview's combined figure is about 8.6 million ounces using a 0.30 g/t gold cutoff (the lowest grade worth counting). A second view at a 0.55 g/t cutoff trims the pile to about 5 million ounces averaging roughly a gram per tonne — the grade profile Christie wants investors to see.

She frames the scale in major terms: "you talk to Barrick and Newmont and whoever," she says, and 5 million ounces is what motivates those majors to enter a new district — near-surface, open-pit material with, in her words, simple metallurgy.

## The PEA: a base case, on purpose

The maiden PEA (preliminary economic assessment — a first, approximate look at mine economics) is due in the fourth quarter of 2026. It will use the 2025 drilling and the 2026 resource, not this year's 70,000 metres, so Christie presents it as a floor: "this is just a base case. And it's pretty damn good." Analyst expectations she cites — not company guidance — run 30,000 to 40,000 tonnes per day and over 250,000 ounces per year across ten years, possibly higher in the early years if high-grade starter pits (small first pits mined for early cash flow) can be delineated.

Metallurgical test work (how readily gold can be extracted) is, she says, at "almost the PFS level" (prefeasibility study — the detailed study that follows a PEA), covering CIL (carbon-in-leach) processing plus flotation and heap options, and baseline environmental work is "2 to 5 years in."

## The gap that could reshape the early years

The unpriced swing factor is the low-lying, swampy ground between the Airstrip and Powerline zones — a gap nobody drilled when the company was capital-constrained. It is now yielding shallow high grade: 13 grams per tonne material over 14 metres, "not very deep." "If that high-grade truly persists through there," Christie says, it "could replace what we currently Think is year 1 to 3" — the early production years a PEA would outline. Only about 10,000 of the 46,000 metres drilled this year have been released; more results come before camp shutdown around mid-December.

## 2027: eight rigs and a district

The 2026 program totals 70,000 metres, about 60,000 of it at AurMac. From 15 January 2027 the company plans eight rigs and at least 70,000 metres — with 100,000 as the goal — plus 20,000 to 30,000 metres on regional targets. The regional ground has already delivered: two discoveries in their first two holes, 25 kilometres west, grading from about 1 gram up to 17 grams per tonne, with "almost 500 grams per ton" of silver in one of them. "Who makes Greenfield discoveries in their first two holes?" Christie asks. She sketches a district running across AurMac, Nitra and neighbouring Sitka's property, on a land package of about 1,200 square kilometres — 830 of that around AurMac itself — and expects "a district mill here" on the flat ground with existing infrastructure. Roads and power lines already cross the property.

## Permitting can start at the PEA

Yukon's environmental assessment can begin from a PEA through "pre-submission engagement," Christie explains, as long as infrastructure locations are fixed — which puts condemnation drilling (drilling under planned infrastructure to confirm it would not sit on ore) and infill drilling on the critical path, with mine and water licensing typically around years three to four. The current financing, meant to leave $30 million to $40 million at the end of 2027, "saves us a year towards the potential construction timeline," she says, and the company will choose between a PEA update and going straight to PFS once more results land.

## Positioning before the catalyst

Banyan "just got GDXJ inclusion" — the junior-gold index Christie credits with added liquidity and future institutional access. She reports strong major interest in the Yukon — more than 35 million ounces discovered in the Tombstone gold belt in five years — but says Banyan is not soliciting suitors before the PEA: "we think that we've got a lot of value to add."

Every figure above is what the video says, not published guidance. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves, and the PEA has not been released.