Revival Gold: Bear Trek Intercept Argues for Mineability, Not New Tonnage — Merkur's Q1 PFS Is the Repricing Event

## What the interview actually adds

The August 2026 CEO.CA conversation with Revival Gold is dense with company-specific detail, and the through-line is de-risking. Management is running two tracks at once: an exploration track at the Bear Trek/Arnett deposit, where the objective has moved from discovery toward mineability, and a development track at Merkur in Utah, where a preliminary feasibility study (PFS — the first formal economic study on a project) is the near-term catalyst. The guest anchors the whole path to a construction decision in 2028 and first gold in 2029.

## Bear Trek: continuity, not discovery

The news that opened the interview was a drill result of more than 131 metres at 3.43 grams per tonne gold in the jaw zone, including high-grade cores above 11 g/t. The guest describes the intercept at about 500 gram-metres — a measure of grade multiplied by length, the standard way drill results are compared — and calls it one of the company's biggest in that zone to date. It comes out of exploration started five or six years ago, now driven by Dan Pace, following earlier work by Steve Priesmeyer and Pete Blakely.

The word management repeats most is continuity. Four holes now sit in a section spanning about 750 metres vertically, and two wedge holes — short step-outs angled off the main holes — are still pending. The guest is explicit that the point of those remaining outsides is not to find something new but to establish whether the orebody can be mined effectively and efficiently. That is a meaningful change in what a drill result is being asked to prove.

On scale, the guest claims the underground already carries 4.6 million ounces of gold and is open in all directions. One caveat: the transcript renders a second, far smaller figure inside the same answer, so treat the exact resource statement as unconfirmed until Revival Gold publishes it.

## Merkur: the fast path to cash flow

Management is unambiguous that Bear Trek supplies scale while Merkur is the route to near-term cash flow. The Utah project's advantages are practical rather than geological. Merkur sits on private land with little water, which the guest acknowledges will create permitting challenges but which also makes the path through permitting shorter. It is close enough to Salt Lake City to draw staff from a local town of roughly 30,000 people, which the guest frames as making the project staffable in a labour market where wage costs are rising.

The guest also describes Merkur as the company's lead asset, and lays out a deliberate portfolio shape: one project advancing toward free cash flow, plus exploration that keeps the pipeline alive.

Merkur is midway through an 18,000-metre drill program, with plans to expand to four rigs. The work is infill drilling — tightening the existing resource model by converting inferred ounces into Measured and Indicated (M&I) categories, the higher-confidence classes that carry more weight in a study. The guest calls the resulting PFS a big value catalyst and points to the first quarter of next year, which on this interview's August 2026 timeline means early 2027.

## The known risk: metallurgy

The candid part of the interview is metallurgy. Revival Gold completed a first phase of metallurgical test work at Merkur last year and is now in a follow-up phase that deliberately targets harder rock and areas that are more difficult to process. The program is also testing different crush sizes to optimize the trade-off between crushing cost and recovery.

The guest concedes initial results are running a bit behind schedule, with results expected before the end of the summer. The wider program is not finished: more engineering drilling and more test work remain. He attributes the work to John Meyer, VP of engineering development, and the consultant team supporting him.

## The 2028 construction decision, and what it depends on

Management's stated sequence runs from the current infill and wedge-hole results, through metallurgy, into the PFS in the first quarter of next year, then the permitting and engineering steps that follow, to a construction decision in 2028. Construction would take about a year, putting first production in 2029 if nothing slips.

The guest also puts a valuation frame on the conversation: Revival Gold trades, by his account, at roughly $25 per ounce of gold in the ground while the metal sits near $4,000 an ounce. He argues that gap closes as the company de-risks — through final engineering, construction and production — rather than through any single announcement. He is direct that the path has real gates: the metallurgical work, the infill drilling, and a PFS delivered on schedule.

Against that, he points to three supports: a team that has built a mine before, an asset that has been a past producer, and funding in place through to the 2028 construction decision.

## The bottom line

This is a management team describing a financing de-risking path with a dated milestone list rather than a vision statement. The Bear Trek intercept matters because management is using it to argue mineability, not tonnage. The Merkur PFS matters because it is the first number that puts economics on the page. Metallurgy is the piece most likely to move the schedule, and management has said so. Watch the wedge-hole results and the metallurgical update first; the PFS is the event that reprices the story.