Company Completes Metallurgical Drilling at Chile Gold Project

Flagship Minerals completed a metallurgical drilling and trenching program at its Isidora gold project in Chile. The work collected samples for pilot-scale heap leach testing and marks a technical milestone for the 2.1-million-ounce project. The program included four large-diameter diamond holes totaling 600.5 meters and five 600-meter trenches.

Samples targeted oxidized zones within the existing mineral resource estimate and will be sent to a Chilean laboratory for leach kinetics and recovery analysis.

With the metallurgical program finished, the company has begun infill drilling inside the current resource area. The campaign will later expand to extension drilling around the existing pit shell and confirmatory drilling of historical holes. The company acquired nearly 20,000 meters of historical drill core and the full geological database from the previous operator for $3 million.

Officials said the purchase avoided an estimated $30 million and five years of new work. An updated mineral resource estimate is scheduled for later this year or early 2027 once metallurgical results are incorporated into the prefeasibility study.